In the Kosh-Agach region of the Altai Republic the results of the contest 'Manul the rare steppe cat' were announced. This was the contest of the ecological projects and drawings announced by the Siberian Environmental Center in February 2009. The contest was run within the Pallas' Cat Study and Conservation Program and in collaboration with the Kosh-Agach center of the Children Additional Education. There were 53 students of most different age - from 1st to 10th grade - participating in the contest.

The winners of the contest were chosen during the trip of the Siberian Environmental Center employees and volunteers to the Kosh-Agach region. More than 70 works were waiting to be assessed. There were various drawings of the Pallas's cat, stories about meeting this cat in the wild, essays and poems on the Pallas's cat conservation. It was a tough job to pick the best works from such a variety, as almost every one of them deserved to be rewarded.

The contest drew a lot of attention, not only from children, but from teachers as well. People became aware of the Pallas's cat and started talking about it, regardless of the fact that manul-mania recently spread in the Internet never reached the Kosh-Agach region. This is important, as the Kosh-Agach region is one of the few places where the Pallas's cat lives in our country. In some schools, when children were asked 'Has any of you ever seen a manul?' a lot of them actually responded they have. This gives us hope that thanks to the contest the children and the adults will grow more careful about Pallas's cat and the other animals that dwell in their region. Manul's conservation in the Altai Republic depends a great deal on the its people.

More than a half of contestants were awarded certificates. All children were given booklets and a poster of Pallas's cat and calendars with endangered animals of Altai.

P.S. We'd like to express our thanks to our friends from the ru_manulomania website for their help in creating the winner's certificate mockup.

Contact: Anna Barashkova savemanul@mail.ru