Thanks to V.E. Flint, the Sapsan Regional Public Fund for the Protection of Rare Birds was created in 2000.

A native Muscovite who grew up on Bolshaya Ordynka, in an intelligent family of a professor of crystallography, Vladimir Flint became interested in birds from childhood, became seriously interested in zoology and saw it as his main profession. But the further path to science passed through the war, which the young tanker V.E. Flint graduated in Czechoslovakia, through post-war labor and evening school for working youth. His scientific start turned out to be protracted: only at the age of 24 V.E. Flint crossed the first milestone – he entered the biology department of Moscow University. Here he immediately showed himself to be a promising professional ornithologist. One small point: his student article on the birds of Izmailovsky Park is still referred to by experts as a very significant source on the avifauna of Moscow.

After graduating from Moscow State University, the future leader of domestic ornithology began working at the N.F. Institute of Epidemiology. Gamaleya, where he defended both dissertations necessary for a scientific career: his candidate’s dissertation “On the zoological foundations of epidemiological exploration” (1959) and his doctorate “The spatial structure of populations of small mammals” (1972). He traveled a lot to the most distant and unexplored corners of the Soviet Union, studying mammals and birds, collecting his famous collection of bird clutches, which was later donated to the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University. In 1969, V.E. Flint went to work at this museum, where he worked fruitfully in the ornithological department for 8 years. He was friends with the Zoo Museum staff throughout his entire life.

In the 1970s, when acute problems of nature conservation received special attention from scientists, the public and the state, the country needed organizers capable of building a modern system of wildlife conservation. Before V.E. Flint discovered new possibilities for applying his organizational talent and his extraordinary abilities in rallying numerous colleagues. He actively became involved in this activity, quickly gained the unquestioned authority of a wise strategist and active practitioner in the field of wildlife conservation, and soon became a recognized leader in the protection of rare species.

Since 1976, for more than a quarter of a century, V.E. Flint implemented his ideas while working at the Institute for Nature Conservation. For example, his “Operation Siberian Crane” received worldwide recognition, which marked the beginning of a comprehensive study and rescue of the Russian endemic Siberian crane from extinction, and attracted the attention of a wide range of specialists and practitioners to this model program. V.E. Flint was concerned about the fate of all birds, but he was especially attracted to cranes, bustards, waders, and raptors. It was he who initiated the creation of working groups on these birds, and working groups are still involved in the development and implementation of programs for the study, conservation and restoration of bird populations. The results of this multifaceted work are presented in one of the latest books by V.E. Flint “Strategy for the conservation of rare species in Russia: theory and practice” (2000).

Vladimir Evgenievich was always focused on the future, constantly in search of new theoretical, applied and organizational forms of bird protection. His main achievement in this field is the creation of the Russian Bird Conservation Union in 1993, uniting a cohort of like-minded people around it, defining the main areas of activity and forming the structure of the Union, and including Russian ornithologists in the international bird conservation system. For more than a decade V.E. Flint headed the Russian Bird Conservation Union: from its founding until December 2001 as President, and in recent years as its Honorary President.

Achievements of V.E. Flint in the study and conservation of the animal world, his high public positions are numerous and varied. His credit includes participation in the creation of the Red Books of the USSR and Russia, in the preparation of the most important environmental legislative acts, in the development and implementation of a strategy for the conservation of biodiversity. For six years he was elected to the Council of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, participated in a number of IUCN General Assemblies and International Ornithological Congresses, including the last one in Beijing (2002).

Professor V.E. Flint was awarded many government and international awards, was awarded the honorary sign “Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation”, was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Under his leadership, a large galaxy of students has grown up in Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union who continue his work and bring his behests to life on the study and protection of birds and other animals in the vast expanses of Eurasia.

Vladimir Evgenievich was always open and available for personal and creative communication, he was keenly interested in the achievements of fauna, ecology, museum work, bibliography, the art of keeping birds of prey and ethnographic finds. He was always ready to discuss both major problems of zoological science and various events in the life of our domestic scientific teams. Possessing an extraordinary memory, V.E. Flint kept in touch with several generations of zoological scientists, collecting and passing on pieces of our ornithological history for many years.

The contribution of Vladimir Evgenievich Flint to zoology and nature conservation in Russia, to the formation of the current scientific potential is so great that his figure will undoubtedly remain forever in the memory of posterity.
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, “Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation”, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts. Honorary member of the Theriological Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences, lifelong honorary member of the British Ornithological Union and the National Geographic Society of the USA.
Died March 23, 2004.