The Princely Forest Nature Reserve (, ) is a scientific reserve in

Glodeni District Glodeni District () is a district () in northwestern Moldova, with its administrative center at Glodeni. , its population was 61,900. The district consists of 35 localities, 18 communes, 16 villages and one city (Glodeni). History The oldest ...

Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...

, which founded in 1993. It covers an area of 6,032 hectares, the largest of all of the Moldova scientific reserves. Pădurea Domnească stretches along the bank of the

Prut River The Prut (also spelled in English as Pruth; , ) is a river in Eastern Europe. It is a left tributary of the Danube, and is long. Part of its course forms Romania's border with Moldova and Ukraine. Characteristics The Prut originates on the eas ...

, next to the border of Moldova with

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. The nearest settlement is

Glodeni Glodeni () is a List of cities and towns in Moldova, city in Moldova. It is located in the north-western part of the country, in the old Bessarabia region. It is the largest city and administrative center of Glodeni District. Spread across an ar ...

Biodiversity

Pădurea Domnească is the only area in Moldova where

European bison The European bison (: bison) (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bi ...

live. The species is classified as extinct in the country. Bison, which had previously disappeared in the territory of Moldova, were brought from the Polish

Kampinos Kampinos is a village in Warsaw West County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Kampinos. It lies approximately east of Sochaczew and west of Warsaw. The village lies ...

and

Białowieża Białowieża is a village in Poland's Podlaskie Voivodeship, in the middle of the Białowieża Forest, to which it gave its name. The village is some east of Hajnówka and southeast of the province capital, Białystok. Location Białowieża i ...

national parks in 2005. Then, one male and two females lived in a nursery with an area of 32 hectares. In 2018, there were already seven bison in the forest. In 2019, Moldova held negotiations with the Ministry of the Environment of

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

on the exchange of several more animals. Belarusian state media reported that Moldova spends $25,000-30,000 on the bison program annually. The reserve was created in order to preserve the massif of floodplain and swampy forests in the valley of the middle reaches of the River Prut, conservation of rare and endangered species of animals and plants. Pădurea Domnească is home to 49 species of mammals and more than 150 species of birds. 19 plant species with varying degrees of threat of extinction are included in the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

. In total, around 575 plant species can be found in the reserve. The average height above sea level is from 40 to 60 m.

Hiking trails

The reserve is part of several local hiking trails that connect Pădurea Domnească and nearby natural sites. * Landscape reserve O sută de movile (''one hundred mounds''), a natural landscape covered with more than 3500 mounds, springs and small lakes. * Cheile Buteşti, a

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

located near Butești. The limestone cliffs in the gorge are more than 2 km long, 125 meters wide and up to 40 meters high. * Stînca Mare reefs, remains of an ancient limestone coral reef (millions of years ago this area was the bottom of the sea). Located south of Koban, 1000 meters long, 100 meters wide and up to 40 meters high. * Plots of oak groves (123 hectares), with huge oak trees about 250 years old and up to 35 m high.

Gallery

Valea_100_movile_rez._Padurea_Domneasca_Glodeni_(1).jpg, Sută de movile 100_movile_rez._Padurea_Domneasca_Glodeni_(3).jpg, Sută de movile File:Pestera_in_reciful_Butesti_Glodeni_(4).jpg, Cheile Buteşti File:Stinca_Mare_Cobani_Glodeni_02.jpg, Stînca Mare

Bibliography

Moldovan Forest Agency: Pădurea Domnească

External links

References