Vladimir E. Flint

Vladimir Evgenievich Flint (Владимир Евгеньевич Флинт; March 14, 1924 – March 23, 2004) was a Russian conservationist and zoologist, specializing in ornithology. He was the author or co-author of more than 650 papers and books dealing with zoology and wildlife conservation.

Biography Vladimir E. Flint was born in Moscow and grew up in the neighborhood of Bolshaya Ordynka Street. From childhood, he took a serious interest in birds. His father, E. E. Flint (1887–1975), was a professor of crystallography. In WW II Vladimir Flint served in combat as a crew member of a T-34 and became shell-shocked, but returned to the front. He ended the war on the Elbe with the rank of senior lieutenant, acting as second in command to the officer commanding a machine gun platoon.

After military service from 1942 to the spring of 1946, Flint worked in Moscow for two years and took academic classes in the evenings. In 1948 he entered the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University (MSU). In 1953 Vladimir graduated from MSU University with a diploma thesis on the eider of the White Sea's Onega Bay.

Contributions to nature conservation V. E. Flint was among the founders of the USSR Ornithological Society in 1983.

Vladimir Flint participated in the creation of the IUCN's Red Data Books and in the preparation of legislative acts on nature conservation. He was one of the authors and editors of the Red Data Book of the USSR (1978, 1982), the Red Data Book of the RSFSR (1983), the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation (2001) and the Red Data Book of Moscow (2001). He is the author of the draft of the USSR law «Об охране и использовании животного мира» ("On the Protection and Use of Wildlife"), which declared fundamentally new legal norms. The law was approved and put into effect by a decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on January 1, 1981. The younger son Alexander (born 1953) was director of the St. Demetrius School of Sisters of Mercy (Moscow) from 1992 to 2003 and, subsequently, became general director of «Информационно-образовательный центр „Соучастие“», a non-profit organization for promoting information, education, and charitable participation, for the Russian Orthodox Church.

Awards and honors Flint was elected a full member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.