Profile: Sergei Smirenski

"I am determined to make a change for cranes and the people who live side-by-side with cranes, whatever it takes."

Muraviovka Park is where Dr. Smirenski does much of his work with cranes.

by Christina, Grade 7, FAS, West Long Branch, NJ

Sergei Smirenski is an ornithologist, or a person who studies birds...in his case, cranes. He has loved birds since his early childhood. Dr. Smirenski lives in Russia, but he travels often for his work with the International Crane Foundation (ICF). I met him when he came to New Jersey with the New Jersey-Amur Teachers Program, a group including my teacher, Kathy Prout, which traveled to Russia to help save the cranes. I interviewed him through e-mail.

Sergei Smirenski was born in Moscow. His parents were engineers who loved the outdoors, and every Sunday they took him hiking in the Moscow region. When he was eight years old, he climbed the High Caucasus Mountains with his father. During a summer vacation he participated in a field expedition near the North Pole. He has travelled all around the former Soviet Union and many other countries. His travels helped him choose his profession and his way of life.

Dr. Smirenski studied at Moscow State Pedagogical (Teacher) Institute and at Moscow State University. He specialized in ornithology, especially bird behavior and breeding habits. He enjoyed studying birds in the field and fell in love with cranes. "You just need to see and hear this magnificent and graceful bird once," he says, "and you are hooked! This is exactly what happened to crane lovers all over the world that I have had a chance to talk to."

In 1986, he wrote his doctoral thesis on "Protection of Birds in the Amur River Basin," and he has devoted himself to their protection ever since. His wife, Elena, is also a biologist, working at the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin. They have a daughter, Irina, and a son, Dmitri. Irina is a junior in college and was a "crane mother" at the Crane Breeding Center in Oka Nature Reserve in Russia, helping to raise crane chicks. Dmitri is a college freshman. From the age of nine, he helped his father with field research on cranes in the Russian Far East. Both Irina and Dmitri worked as volunteers at ICF throughout their high school years.

Right now, Russia is having a hard time with finances. They do not have money in federal or regional budgets for wildlife protection, so no money is going for the research and study of cranes. In 1994, the Socio-ecological Union of the former USSR formed the first privately operated nature park in Russia - Muraviovka Park. Donations from international environmental organizations maintain the park and help developing projects which otherwise would not be possible. Much of the work that Dr. Smirenski does for cranes involves this park and the surrounding villages.

Dr. Smirenski's life is very hectic and he travels extensively, but he is "determined to make a change for the cranes and the people who live side-by-side with cranes, whatever it takes."

Learn more about cranes.