The protection of amphibians and reptiles in the Russian Far East
The Russian Far East is a part of North East Asia and covers an area between Lake Baikal and the Pacific Ocean, including Wrangel Island, Sakhalin Island, Kurile, Commander and the Shantarsky Islands. Due to its significant meridional extent and the nature of the permafrost occurrence there is a huge variety and patchiness of natural areas which is reflected in the species composition of the amphibian and reptiles living over there. The north eastern boundary for reptiles (Eastern Siberian, Dauro Mongolian and Manchu) (Kurentsov, 1965) passes here; it results in the formation of many different population groups: of the <island> (small isolated) type or the tape distribution type. Because of the extreme conditions of existence on the boundaries of their ranges, many species in this group of animals are extremely vulnerable to various natural and anthropogenic negative influences. Protection of amphibians and reptiles is a vast area that includes the research of impact of various forms of pollution on the herpetofauna, massive capture of animals for food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes, etc. Here we will focus only on two important aspects in this field: the distribution of amphibians and reptiles in the reserves of the Russian Far East and the representation of these groups of animals in the regional and national Red Data Books. Two works devoted to the protection of herpetofauna of Siberia and the Far East were published near 30 35 years ago (Borkin Korotkov, 1981; Borkin Krever, 1987) Nine species of amphibians and 18 species of reptiles, excluding marine species of reptiles swimming into our waters, were recorded in 13 reserves. Unfortunately, reserves of the TransBaikalsky Krai1 and Buryatia were not considered in the survey, but we believe that the herpetological