Holarctic Marmots as a factor of Biodiversity.
Rumiantsev V.Yu;, Nikol'skii A.A. & Brandler O.V. eds.,
Abstracts,
3d Conference on Marmots (Cheboksary, Russia, 25-30 August 1997),
Moscow ABF 1997, 216p., 29 (Russian), 148-149 (English).
ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARTIFICIAL BURROW FOR MARMOTA BOBAC
KEEPING UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF SEMI-CONFINMENT.
V.V. Grubnik, V.Yu. Gorbunov
Kharkov State University,
Kharkov, Ukraine
Most of the time Marmota bobac live in the burrow, both during the winter hibernation and in summer.The fact that this aspect of this species life has hardly been investigated led us to the creation of the artificial burrow ( burrow from now on) for Marmota bobac keeping under the conditions of semi-confinment.
The burrow was constructed at the KSU Biological Station since there animals of this
species have been kept in the confinment for a long time.
A foundation pit was dug out in the sand (2.5x2.5x2 m). Walls of the pit were covered
by the brick. On the sand pillow there were two cells (100x50x50 sm) connected by
the passage with glass windows. The underground cells contained movable glasses
and passages to the surface. All the passages were made of brick and their section
was 17x17 sm. Burrow passages were where possible set up with movable glasses. The
surface part of the burrow contained an open-air cage 2.4x3.7 m with the concrete
bottom covered by sod 30 sm thick.
The basic problem we faced when constructing the burrow was to enable the durability
of the construction as well as reliability plus optimal conditions for animals and
acceptable for observers. We seem to have successfully solved this problem.
In 1997 spring a couple of this species was introduced into the burrow. The animals
have chosen the smaller room to live there.
We have planed a set of experiments on the period of 1997-1998 years connected with
investigation of: animal behavior in the active state; some questions of hibernation;
mating; bearing the youngs; microclimate changes during the year etc.
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