Black stork

The Black Stork is a large wading bird in the stork family. It is a widespread, but rare, species that breeds in the warmer parts of central and eastern regions in Kazakhstan. This is a shy and wary species, unlike the closely related White Stork. It is seen in part or small flocks. The Black Stork feeds on amphibians and insects.

The Black Stork is a large bird, 95 to 100 cm in length, and weighing around 3 kilograms. Like all storks, it has long legs, a long neck, and a long, straight, pointed beak. The plumage is all black. The breast feathers are long and shaggy. The bare skin around its eyes is red, as are its bill and legs. It walks slowly on the ground. Like all storks, it flies with its neck outstretched.

The Black Stork builds a stick nest high in trees. Black Stork parents have been known to kill one of their young, generally the smallest, in times of food shortage. Stork nestlings do not attack each other, and their parents’ method of feeding them means that stronger chickens cannot outcompete weaker ones for food directly, since parental infanticide is an efficient way of reducing blood size.

Vocabulary:

wading – плавающий

shaggy – лохматый

steadily – уравновешенно

wary – осторожный

nestling – птенчик

flock – стая

sibling –единокровный

beak – клюв

infanticide – детоубийство

plumage – оперение

breast – грудь

• Answer the questions:

1. Where can you see the Black Stork in Kazakhstan?

2. What does the Black Stork feed?

3. What does it look like?

4. Where does the Black Stork build its nest?

5. What is the Black Stork’s method of feeding its nestlings?

• Finish the sentences:

1. The Black Stork is a large …

2. This is a shy and wary species …

3. The bare skin around its eyes …

4. Black Stork parents have been known to kill one …

5. Stork nestlings do not attack each other …

• True or False:

1. The Black Stock is a small wading bird in the stork family.

2. It breeds in the colder parts of central and eastern regions in Kazakhstan.

3. The Black Stork feeds on amphibians and insects.

4. The Black Stork builds a stick nest high in trees.

5. Black Stork parents have not been known to kill one of their young, the smallest nestling.

PART VIII: ECOLOGY

Environmental problems

The environment of Kazakhstan has been badly damaged by human activity. Most of the water in Kazakhstan is polluted by industrial effluents, pesticide and fertilizer residue, and, in some places, radioactivity. The most visible damage has been done to the Aral Sea, which as recently as the 1970s was larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America save Lake Superior. The sea began to shrink rapidly when sharply increased irrigation and other demands on the only significant tributaries, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya (the latter reaching the Aral from neighboring Uzbekistan), all but eliminated inflow.

Industrial pollution is a bigger concern in Kazakhstan's manufacturing cities, where aging factories pump huge quantities of unfiltered pollutants into the air and groundwater.

The gravest environmental threat to Kazakhstan comes from radiation, especially in the Semey (Semipalatinsk) region of the northeast, where the Soviet Union tested almost 500 nuclear weapons, 116 of them above ground. Often, such tests were conducted without evacuating or even alerting the local population. Although nuclear testing was halted in 1990, radiation poisoning, birth defects, severe anemia, and leukemia are very common in the area.

With some conspicuous exceptions, lip service has been the primary official response to Kazakhstan's ecological problems. In February 1989, opposition to Soviet nuclear testing and its ill effects in Kazakhstan led to the creation of one of the republic's largest and most influential grass-roots movements, Nevada-Semipalatinsk, which was founded by Kazak poet and public figure Olzhas Suleymenov. In the first week of the movement's existence, Nevada-Semipalatinsk gathered more than 2 million signatures from Kazakhstanis of all ethnic groups on a petition to Mikhail Gorbachev demanding the end of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan. After a year of demonstrations and protests, the test ban took effect in 1990. It remained in force in 1996, although in 1995 at least one unexploded device reportedly was still in position near Semey.