Summer 2022 Pleistocene Park Update

Greetings everyone!

After quiet a long silence decided to update you all on how things are going in the Park.

Briefly, Pleistocene Park project is running and our efforts to create high productive grazing ecosystems are continuing

It is quiet illegal now in Russia to express opinions about what is going on in Ukraine unless you really want "operation" to continue. Therefore I will keep my opinion to myself and private communications.   Have to admit that operation of research station and the Park is getting much harder from economical perspective. International research is cancelled. Peoples interest to climate change, and ecology is really low (both in Russia and abroad), and economical situation is not too favourable either. 

In any case my father started Park in 1996, and back then our financial situation was much worse than today and throughout most of the Park history it always been tough to maintain the project. So see no reasons why current problems should stop us.

We are of course not planning any big animal introduction this year, but in the last years we introduced enough, and their densities are now sufficient for the ecosystem effects. Also animals take time to adapt and start to increase in numbers. So even without new animals there is enough to take care of in the Park.

Right now main focus is the reconstruction/improvements in the old fence which we built back in 2005-2006.  I already wrote about it. Last year we prepared all the logs and brought the net to the Park. Now we are working on steam drilling the permafrost, installing the posts and attaching the net. We are trying to finish it this year, but it is going to be a hard task. We lack crawling transporter which will be able to pull the "steam machine" over the floodplain area of the Park. Tractor we have is driving over this terrain only in the first part of the summer while soil is still mostly frozen. Later in the summer it will sink in the mud .   At the moment we have installed logs over the 40% of the perimeter.  Will keep you updated on our progress.

Despite the fact that we can't bring herbivores to the Park, we are still making some introductions this year.  In the ecosystem our goal is to cycle nutrients as rapid as possible. We want rapidly growing plants, we want herbivores to process it, but things we lack in the park are ways to quickly process animals dung and get it to the soil to improve fertility. And in the frames of this concept this year we introduced small groups of dung beetles larva and ground worms to the Park.  Next to the winter shelters we built for cows, goats and bison (later haven't been used)  we have small hills of dung and we introduced insects around those hills.  Honestly saying I am not really sure these creatures will survive in the permafrost region, but since entire introduction of both species cost me around 100 USD, it was really worth a try. We check next year if any of the worms or dung beetles will survive and then will introduce more.

Now about the animals. All the animals we brought last year proved to be a good choice. Camels and goats did a really good job going throught the winter. It took them some time to adapt and find out what to forage in the winter, but after the new year both species actively browsed on willow.  We of course supported them during this winter, and probably will continue next year, but I have a feeling that both species has a capacity to live on their own in the Arctic. 

New herd of bison also do well. We keep them in relatively small fenced ares (around 100 hectares), and plant to keep them their at least until they will produce first babies.  Old herd we introduced in 2019 is really hard to spot in the big park, but they been seen in the spring. 

Below will post few recent pictures.

And in the end just want to thank you all for your support to our Project in these tough period.  It is really helpfull and our work is much dependent on it. 

All the best 

Nikita