Dear Colleagues! The director of Leningrad zoo (St.-Petersburg, Russia) Irina Skiba has decided to cancel the Department of Insectarium and Amphibians, that will lead to the lost of unique collection of the Department formed since the end of 2008, comprises of nearly 100 species of different groups of invertebrates and over 70 species of amphibians. On the base of our Department working with collection of invertebrates and amphibians we are reaching great success in conservation of different species of insects, arachnids, millipedes, frogs, toads and salamanders/newts including of breeding of rare and endangered species, maintain in-situ and ex-situ conservation programs in cooperation with different Russian and foreign organizations, building of 4 zoo’s expositions, publishing over 10 scientific and scientifically-popular articles, we also develop unique educational programs and excursions for study of children. We kindly ask you to prevent the execution of such a "crime" on our beloved animals and for the sake of all those visitors and their children, who are willing to attend and visit our exhibitions, excursions and educational programs. Please, send your responses to one or all of below listed e-mail addresses and on-line forms to stop this irresponsible action of zoo director! [email protected] (Vice Governor of Saint-Petersburg, Vasily Kichedzhi) [email protected] (Committee for Culture of city of Saint-Petersburg) Electronic reception of Governor of city of Saint-Petersburg (in Russian): ????? ??????????? ???????? Mikhail F. Bagaturov, Anna A. Bagaturova, Kirill Yu. Danilov Please, repost it and share as many places and times you can!!! http://www.facebook.com/mikhail.f.bagaturov
