The Moscow Department of Natural Resources is going to allocate funds for fight against the imbalance of the ecosystem of the region by populating the missing species, as “Izvestia” writes.

      The tenders for the development of the scheme of increasing the population of Russian desman and European mink for the amount of 9,000,000 roubles will be announced in 2015. The lack of these animals in the ecosystem results in a large number of sick pigeons and rodents.

      The department is considering the possibility of establishment of “reserves” for Russian desman in the green areas of the Moscow region, where the experts will observe the life of these animals and find out whether it is possible to settle them through the forests and parks of Moscow. There is almost no European mink left in Moscow, it is displaced by a more invasive American mink. According to experts of the Department, it is necessary to displace the American species in order to avoid extinction of its European counterpart. So that to displace American mink they will use river otter being its “food competitor” and even exercising “physical pressure” on it. At the same time, otters do not compete with European minks: food preferences of these species are historically different.