Pleistocene Park spring 2023 update

Dear Friends

This is our spring update to let you all know how the Pleistocene Park is doing and what are we up to.

Winter passed well. It wasn’t exceptionally cold or snowy, though beginning of the winter – October, November been colder that normal. And yes, October in the Park can already count as winter month😊

Same as in the past couple of years we are working to finish the renovation/improvement of the fencing.

In the previous two years we have prepared all required posts, purchased and transported all metal net to the basecamp of the park, installed 60% of the posts and attached around 40% of the net to the post.

This April we spent several days unrolling the metal net along the remaining parts of the fencing. Now all is left is to install 40% of the posts, and to attach remaining net to the posts. Hardest part is to install the posts. 

Same with previous year we are planning to use “steam drilling machine” to melt wells in the permafrost 2.2 meter deep and insert logs there. Problem is that part of the terriotory left is the floodplain area, where ground is more soft and old little bulldozer which we used to tow the steam machine can not drive on this terrain past June (thaw depth become too deep). Trying to solve the problem by fixing our old crawling transporter which we used when originally built the fence back in 2005-2006. Had some mechanics checked it and hope to bring all required spare parts by the end of June. If this will work out it will allow to have the team working on the fencing July-September. This should be enough to finish all the fence installations.

Now about the animals.

Horses. At the moment we have around 6 foals born and expecting 2 more. Which is a very good result. In 2020 we brought 10 horses with 8 of them being females from the Srednekolymsk region and just this year some of them are bringing kids.  Overall Pleistocene Park location is a tough place for horses since it is at the edge or probably even little past their historical habitat and pasture quality in the Park is still not good enough for them. So having so many babies is a good news. Will make sure moms will get enough extra forage in the winter.  For instance the location where we bought horses from is a historical territory for Yakut people who been grazing their horses and cows in that territory for 200 years, and I am really thinking of sending their a herd of bison. None of the people there are thinking about ecosystem restoration, but if you use herbivores long enough pastures are getting better. And they do have much better pastures than what we have in the Park. So opening a new Park there makes very good sense. Moreover the head of the organization which owns all horses there expressed interest for getting bison, and I think at some point I will find a way to provide them.

Camels. These animals are clearly now the most beloved animals in the park. They are really charming, friendly and huge. Comparing with them our bison look midgets. This spring they been mating so hoping to see new babies this year. They been in the Park for 2 winters and we are still thinking if we need to increase the population of those and if they will have the ability to survive and keep stable/growing population on their own, without our help. Babies will indicate. They are for sure good in terms of opening landscape and shortening tall shrubs.

Bison. Same as back in Pleistocene we are looking forward to make bison the main herbivore in the ecosystem. Reminding that we have two herds in the park. One is from 2019 and one from 2021. First herd had a 3rd winter on their own without any help from our side. Don’t know if they had any babies this year (will find out in the summer). But in 2021 and 2022 they did. Second herd been mating in the autumn, but at the moment we don’t see if they are planning to give birth or not. But really much expecting. This year we kept second herd of bison in our oldest 40 hectare enclosure (actually waiting for fence renovation to finish) and comparing with similar size herd of cows we had there previous year they required 3-4 times less supplemental feed. Hopefully in the autumn will let them go into the big fence area and now extra feed will be required.

Goats/Sheep These animals are doing well. Problem with them is that they are domestic and they do not have a regime of giving birth in the autumn. Have to separate males from females in order not to have babies in the deep winter or in the autumn. Expecting bunch of babies right now. Animals do require extra feed from our side and are using shelter in the winter, but since they are small they are not too expensive to us. They do their ecological duties for pasture development, but of course we doubt they will be part of sustainable grazing ecosystem in the Arctic

Cows. These animals appeared in 2018 as the backup plan when we once again failed to bring bison to the Park. Overall it is hard for them in the park and population is not growing, but they are good browsers and we invest resources for their living in the winter. At least we are getting very cold adapted cows. By the way had two babies born just today.

Reindeer and moose. We have some small populations of these animals in the big fence in the Park, but not accounted. In the autumn there been some migrations of wild reindeer in the region, which also had impact on domestic reindeer herds. The herd where we used to buy reindeer for the Park has totally disappeared. Reindeer herders apparently didn’t pay good attention and wild reindeer passing by attracted domestic reindeer and entire herd disintegrated and walked away. Accounting that all local people (throughout entire Russian Arctic at least) are considering wild reindeer as a “free meat” all those migrations of reindeer do not end well, and as far as I know the population of wild reindeer is really low.

And now about the future plans.

It may seems surprising but we actually have quiet big plans for this summer and hopefully for the following years.

Right now we have 24 bison transported from Denmarkto Hungary where animals are passing final tests and getting ready to go to Siberia. We been expecting them come earlier, but as always there are numerous delays and we are actually falling out of schedule.

The plan is following. All 24 bison pass custom in Smolensk, get veterinary permissions and continue on the same truck to Novosibirsk, which is in Siberia. Here I am planning to meet the bison and separate them into two groups. First one is heading full speed to Seimchan which is the river port on the Kolyma to be put on the barge to go to Cherskii. And that is our narrow part, since the barge is scheduled for June 20 and it is not clear how can we make it there in time. And there is not that many other options. But will work something out.

Second group of bison will be transported to Yamal peninsula and given to the “Ingilor” Nature Park. Park is located 40km offroad and it is possible that we will have to keep the bison for some time somewhere in order to water level in the rivers by the nature park will drop so crawling transporters will be able to get there. For return Ingilor Nature park will allow to catch 15 musk ox and their park. This expedition is planned in early July. So I will have to take bison to the Pleistocene Park and immediately turn around and fly to Yamal to join the expedition. For that we are hiring group of specialists from Moscow who is going to tranquilize animals.  After all animals will be caught they will be put on the quarantine and in early August picked up and taken to Archangelsk sea port to go to Pleistocene Park via northern sea route. Here we also have a strict deadline of August 10, when will the ship leave which is agreeing to take our animals on board.

As you see the plans are big. This expedition is quiet expensive and it is made possible with big help of Andrey Melnichenko Foundation. They provided money to purchase and transport bison. Money we raise on the patreon in the last several months will be going to fund the musk ox expeditions. Which includes catching, quarantine and partly the transportation. So big thanks for your help.

If we are successful this year and achieve all goals -fence and animals. We will be more or less finished with our current territory. We will have enough animals and diversity. After that our next plans for following years will be to expand terriroty of the park approximately 8-10 times,build a fence around it and continue with animals transportation. So the goal would be to build 55km of fencing and that will be really a lot of work. I will explain the plan as I see it in one of the following updates.

I will keep you posted on the success of our summer expeditions.

One more time, thank you all for your support. It is not easy to develop Park and do science  in the current situation and new barriers appear all the time, but we manage so far and hopefully will manage in the future.

All the best

Nikita