Careful observations of animal behaviour, searching for locations for their safe movement and charity art exhibitions to help shelters — all this is done by students of the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in their projects. We got acquainted with several teenagers to ask them about their animal protection ideas and research.

So, together with the JASU, we present the young authors of scientific and social projects who make this world a more humane place.

Both elk and crab have to cross the road

Yehor Basatskyi likes to play basketball and learn languages — English and German. He studies at Liko School in Kyiv.

Last year, Yegor received an honorary award at the international school project competition on ecology GENIUS Olympiad Ukraine. The boy researched where ecoducts could be built on the future Kyiv Bypass Road. He will tell you what it is and why it’s important.

An ecoduct is a bridge over the road or a tunnel under it. It is built so that animals can safely cross the road. Ecoducts save both animals and people from accidents.

For example, if there is a pond on one side of the road, and an animal lives on the other side, it has to get to the water somehow. With an ecoduct, it won’t have to cross the road in front of cars. And also, sometimes an animal lives in one part of the forest, and there is prey in another. People have built a road and blocked the animal’s usual route. Ecoducts are built so that animals can move through this obstacle.

When I started working on the project for the Junior Academy, I didn’t even know what ecoducts were. Then I delved into the topic and found out that many of them were built both in America and Europe. I went on a trip and started noticing ecoducts: I saw bridges for large animals in Poland and Austria. In fact, there are also tunnels, but they are just harder to notice.

Ecoducts are built not only for large animals like deer and wild boars but also for turtles and crabs. On Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, there is an unusual bridge for crabs. Every year, millions of these animals simultaneously head from the centre of the island to the ocean to mate. Special tunnels were built for them, and where it wasn’t possible to make a tunnel, they built a rectangular bridge 5 metres high. Its “road surface” is a mesh that crabs can easily cling to with their legs. Moreover, in Japan, there is a passage for turtles under the railroad. And the most interesting thing for me was to learn that in Asia and South America there are ecoducts for monkeys: these are ropes above the road, hanging like lianas, so that monkeys can move from one part of the forest to another.

Both near Kyiv and in Polissia, we have deer, wolves, foxes and roe deer. And even for small animals like hares, for example, ecoducts can be built.

My project was related to the Kyiv Bypass Road. I looked at where it should pass: where the forests were, where the water bodies were. I learned about the surrounding reserves and the animals living there. I also received statistics on accidents with animals in Ukraine. I thought about how the road could interfere with the routes of animals. So, where the highways divide the animal habitats, I suggested building ecoducts. For example, near Bucha, the road should pass through the forest. In one part of it, there is a pond on the Bucha River. An ecoduct can be built there so that elks, deer, roe deer or wild boars can safely reach the water.

How do predators feel in the zoo?

Sofiia loves animals very much and can easily find common ground with them. She has a cat, 4 guinea pigs, 5 rats and 4 mice.

In her research paper for the Junior Academy of Sciences, she studied how the number of zoo visitors affected the behaviour of lions and tigers living in captivity. Sofiia took second place at the All-Ukrainian Contest for the Defence of Scientific Research Projects of the JASU in the Zoology section in 2023.

Disclaimer from UAnimals media: we are against capturing animals from the wild to keep them in zoos. However, we appreciate Sofiia’s research: it’s important to care for those animals that are already in captivity and take into account their needs for solitude and interaction.

I’ve always enjoyed communicating with animals, so I joined a group of young naturalists. It was there that I decided to write a research paper. I wanted to study the behaviour of tigers and lions because they are very intelligent animals.

My research supervisor and I were thinking about the most useful topic. We settled on researching how the number of visitors to the zoo affected the animals. It was important to me that tigers and lions in captivity could feel as comfortable as possible.

The lions I observed at the Kyiv Zoo were Hercules, Liliia, Khrystyna and Daryna, and the tigers were Rena, Maliuk and Amba. I came two to three times a week and observed from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm. It was crucial to stick to the schedule because animals behave differently throughout the day. If I had observed them at different times, it could have affected the results.

The weather, of course, also affects the activity of tigers and lions. They hide when it rains or when it’s too hot. So I selected observations when the weather was approximately the same. These were sunny days in May and June.

I had an ordinary notebook in my hands. Every 5 minutes, I stood near the enclosure and recorded what the tiger or lion was doing. The enclosures at the Kyiv Zoo are arranged in a circle, so I had to run very quickly from one animal to another. It was difficult at first, but then I got used to it. For example, at 3:00 pm I observed lions, at 3:01 pm — a tiger, at 3:02 pm — another tiger, at 3:03 pm — one more, and then lions again. Towards the end of the research, the tigers started to recognise me.

At first, I wrote down what the specific animal was doing because I didn’t know their behavioural patterns. Then I summarised the records and divided the behaviour into such patterns: inactive — when the animal sleeps or lies down; comfort behaviour — for example, a tiger licking its fur; interaction — a tiger looks into the visitor’s eyes, shows interest, may meow; feeding; movement; exploratory behaviour — can sniff something, touch it with a paw; marking — the animal leaves its scents in various places of the enclosure; social — tigers and lions can vocalize or interact with each other in another way.

When there were no people around, the animals spent time inside the enclosures — in the part of the structure invisible to visitors. They also hid when there were too many people. According to my observations, they felt most comfortable on weekdays, when the number of visitors was average. Then lions and tigers showed the most comfortable and exploratory behaviour.

Artistically helping a dog shelter

Tetiana is studying architecture at the Sumy College of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

In 2022, she joined the Agents of Change civic engagement school. This is one of the areas of work of the Junior Academy of Sciences. Here, teenagers who implement their own projects to make the country and society better are called agents of change. At this school, Tetiana created the Paws in Palms project — she exhibited and sold her paintings to help a dog shelter.

When I applied to the Agents of Change School, I already knew that my project would definitely be related to animals. A year before, I had got a dog — a Shar Pei named Bucks. During the year, he got sick a lot. And when the war began, I thought about the following: we help him because he has us. But some animals have no one. I really wanted to help them.

So I organised a charity exhibition at the branch of the city library. I just needed help finding contacts and then hanging the paintings. And everything else was done by myself.

Most of the paintings at the exhibition were mine, but some were provided by friends. There were still lifes, landscapes and animals. I love working with oil paints the most, so the paintings were painted in oil.

We sold 8 works at the exhibition. The most expensive one was a painting by my friend Mariia Kadurina called ‘Venice during the holiday.’ It’s a bright, large, very positive painting.

Among the sold works was mine, with birches — my mom’s favourite painting. Of course, it was hard to give it away. But when I arrived at the shelter, I realised I was ready to give away all my paintings for this. It was incredible! Firstly, the understanding that I was helping. And secondly, these paintings would be kept somewhere on the balcony, but this way they brought joy to people.

At that time, I helped the True Friend public organisation shelter. It’s a small shelter for dogs. With the money collected from the paintings, my mom and I bought cereals, bowls, leashes, collars — various items at the request of the staff.

Honestly, before I got a dog, I hadn’t been interested in stray animals at all. While I was working on the project, I visited the shelter for the first time.

The dogs there are very friendly! They run around both in their enclosures and outside. Several dogs greeted us right away. They were so cheerful — jumping, playing, everything was interesting to them. It was cool.

And it was sad too… The girls who work there told us where these dogs had come from. I even cried because it touched me deeply.

In the future, I want to design a shelter and a clinic for animals. I hope I can bring this idea to life as soon as possible.”

It’s heartening that young Ukrainian scientists and activists are concerned about the fate of animals and the environment. 

Photos: Kyiv Zoo, Parks Australia (Commonwealth of Australia), Mongabay, All That’s Interesting