Ivan joined the project in 2014, taking over from Juriy Bragin as Bird’s Russia’s avicultural representative, forming part of the team responsible for all aspects of the husbandry of headstarted spoon-billed sandpipers. Before becoming an aviculturist, Ivan studied at the Department of Animal Morphology and Ecology as a field zoologist. After graduation, he spent the major part of his career working in the Anti-Plague Institute “Microbe”. His main job at the time was the cultivation of plague bacteria and isolation of antigens. Several years later, he received PhD as microbiologist. In the year before Ivan joined the project, he worked in the Saratov Branch of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, where he studied the behavior of Great bustard in captivity.
We have a few years we’re given on this earth to make it a little better than we found it. All of the easy problems were solved before we arrived. Here’s to finding partners, heroes, mentors and soulmates who keep us focused on tackling the problems we can solve together.