Late-summer Pleistocene Park Report

Dear Friends

Summer is getting to its end, and I think it is time for a new update on the Pleistocene Park Project.

First of all want to welcome all the new supporters who joined us recently. According to our "investigations" majority of new subscribers are French langauge speakers who probably subscribed after watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GW0QP-chFk&fbclid=IwAR3JXCaojcgV9iXf6DMOu_AnrTcbnBCZPZ1ILEg5Jx811wnchQBr7qptjxw

It is quiet an interesting phenomenon. We been featured numerous times in big world media, including newspapers, magazines and TV, but Youtube channel with 44 thousand subscribers brought us the most attention, and Patreon income increased more than 50% in the last month.

This is actually a very good news. Current level of support raised on Patreon (with the fact that rouble  dropped against euro in the last month) is sufficient to cover running expenses of the park - which include salary to workers, forage for animals, fuel and other small miscelanous expenses. 

In the past all these expenses I been covering from the money we earned on the research station, and since research station is unreliable business, I always had fear that we will not be able to maintain the park in case of economical problems. So now when I have this Patreon "backup" I am much more relaxed and can focus more on investments into the infrastructure and new animals.  Plus on top of the crowdfunding we do get some direct donations to the Pleistocene Park Foundation and we now have two sponsors. One is Russian online shop which sells reptiles, ants and related equipment. They been supporting us for the last 6 months with 5% if their sales. ( https://planetexotic.ru ). It is not a big company, but they are the first official sponsor of ours, so we really like them. Actually their business are doing well - apparently many people decided to get themselve some ants/reptiles, while sitting in the quarantine:).  Second sponsor is the German fashion brand armedangels.com . They are supporting us with 3% of their August sales. I still have a very poor understanding how much is that, but it will be really helpful in terms of the musk ox expedition (I will get back to this topic)

So to sum up. This year is tough in terms of the Covid crisis, but support of people like you is really pushing the Pleistocene Park forward. So thanks for this!  I hope that such trend will persist. Also I hope that the COVID restrictions will be over next year and we will be able to channel income from the station to the Park. Since I have some big plans for next year, which are:

1. Total renovation of the big fenced area.  Big fence was built in 2005-2006. We "steam drilled" poles down to 2 meters in the permafrost every 10 meters (total perimeter is 16km) and additionally digged down to the depth of the active layer (70-120cm) poles in between. So there was a pole every 5 meters (every second is one good, and othera are more like a supporting ones). After that the perimeter was closed with the big game net we bought in Canada. It is a very good net, which is still intact, but it was only 1.5 meters tall. (back then we couldn't afford taller fence). Then in some places we just connected additional metal wires on top of the Canadian fence.  However 15 years later some poles has decayed, some broke and in some cases logs were pushed out of the permafrost (it is a local permafrost phenomenon). Still 90%+of the fence is in the good shape but those 10% arleady enough to cause problems. So we are planning to steam drill another pole every 7 meters in line with the old poles, and cover the old net with a new one which will be 2,5-3 meters tall.  We already started to prepare the logs for the fence. Starting September 1, we will hire 1-2 extra people who will be drilling the holes in the active layer with the motor soil drill. This year depth of the active layer (layer which thaws every summer) is around 1 meter. So their job will be to prepare holes in the active layer, and mark every hole. In the end of the winter we will start the "steam drilling"  those wholes deeper  to have logs down to 2.2 meters deep. After that we will have to connect new net to the old and new logs. THis will hopefully make it almost impossible for any animals to pass by.  Instruments for logs, creation of holes and labour we already have ,and the main investments are 20km of fencing which will cost around 50 thousand euro and another 25K to ship to the Park (three 40' feet containers will be required).

2. Fur goats. Since goats are the type of animals which eat absolutely anything, we are really looking for getting some goats for the Park. We tried 3 years ago, but the type of goats we need (Orenburg fur goat) are not that easy to get, since veterinary services does not allow to ship animal out of Orenburg region, because region is considered "not save" in terms of some animals deseases. So even if the animals are healthy you can not take them out. It is a real bummer, and this winter we will be looking for some options to bring them from other "healthier" regions. We are looking for 30 animals, 10 males, 20 females. Transportation will be likely in May 2021. They will reach the Park with the first barges flowing down the Kolyma river. We will be either renting a truck (cargo section should be around 10-11 square meters), or buying a truck bringing the animals and selling the truck locally.  Hopefully all the expedition will be in the range of 10-15k euro.

3. Musk ox. Yes we are going to bring 10 musk ox to the Park from Wrangel Island this september, but 10 musk ox is not enough. So we are really pushing the opportunity to bring musk ox from Yamal to the Park. I know they have spare musk ox in one national reserve there. Need to negotiate with the Yamal government on this. If we will succeed we will be bringing new animals in March 2021. I might try to accompany this transportation with the purchase of big all-terrain truckfor the Pleistocene Park purposes. If all will go as planned will be able to bring 20 musk ox for roughly 75k euro.

4. Bactrian Camels. Yes, yes, some of you maybe wondering why camels. Those animals are good browsers (and we have plenty of tasty willow shrubs), they are living in Mongolia where it  can get as cold as in our region, and more over in historical time Camels lived in Yakutia. So why not give them a try. I think they will be in the same ecological niche as moose. I think transporting them in May 2021 simultaneously with goats. Want to bring 8-10, and hope to achieve it in 25-30k euro budget.

5. More bison. Considering to have another trip to bring more bison from Denmark. This already will happen only in case of some big sponsor will show up. Budget is at least 100k euro, and the plan is to arrange it in the August-Setpember 2021. 

Okey, these are all our optimistic plan for the future. Now to a bit more complicated reality:)

Our preparations for the expedition to bring musk ox from Wrangel island are in the final stage. Our mechanic spent big protion of the summer preparing boats for the expedition. He is almost done, but still need to fix some minor things in both boats, and prepare the cages. Big uncertainty was the new engine for our old boat. It arrived in July, but since this one wasn't new as well, we were afraid it will have some major issues. Fortunately at the moment it looks like everything is ok, and the engine can make the expedition. Now waiting for new propellers and boat lights to arrive.  Materials for cages has arrived a week ago on our first container from Archangelsk same with anchors for boats and some spare parts.

In terms of permissions we already have 2 permissions out of 3 ready. We have the border control permission to expedition to go on the route along the coast, we have the veterinary permission to bring animals to Pleistocene Park ,and only thing that missing is the permission from Ministry of Nature to take musk ox from the island. But looks like that it will be granted in time too. 

Only serious issue is the financial support of the expedition. We are preparing the expedition together with the film makers who are also looking for money for this expedition. We started activity in May, when Denis Snegirev, the director of the movie, found 50 thousand euros to support the expedition (total budget is around 80-90k). 25 thousand were promised by Russian "Mammoth" Foundation, and another 25k by French businessman and explorer Luc Hardy, who agreed to support the expedition but wanted to join us in exchange.   In combination with money from other sources it looked that we have enough or almost enough to accomplish the expedition. However in the last month "Mammoth Foundation" flaked, and because of the COVID restrictions french citizens are not yet allowed to enter Russia. We are trying as much as possible to get Luc a "special" permission to get in, but decision on this matter can be granted only from some certain people from top10 of Russian politics. And I am not certain that we will be able to reach those people.  

We will be making the expedition in any case but by the time the expedition is over I might end up owning a French film production company.  Does anyone want to buy one? Since I do not need it.... totally. 

Our plan is to leave first good weather day starting September 10. It is 10 hours drive from Cherskii to Pevek, a port in the Arctic coast, and another 13 hours (next day) from Pevek to Wrangel. 

On the Park news. Animals in the Park are doing well. Bison are in the big area and are rarely seen. Others are in relative proximity to the basecamp. Weather this summer is really untypical and quiet annoying. All May-June-July it been extremely dry with little to no rain. Most of June-July our entire region was on fire, and we been reporting lots of smoke and actual fires near the Park. Which wasn't nice for numerous reasons.  I think it could be the record warmest June in the records (+14.5 C). July temperatures were similar. Which is more normal. 

Smoke haze in the background. In the front there is a horse brought to the small veterinary fenced area to eat some grasses.

And then in the end of July weather turned rather cold and it started raining. And it doesn't stop raining pretty much ever since. I think we had only 1 or 2 days, at most, over the last month when it didn't rain.  And this is very annoying. It is hard to work in the Park this summer. First it was too hot and too much smoke, and now it is cold and wet. 

In the middle of the summer it was so dry that vegetation growth was halted. Now grasses are growing, but it is late in the season already. So upland grasslands has low harvest this summer, but floodplain grasses are doing quiet well. 

Partially drained lake near the basecamp this year first time has lots of grasses in the newly dry areas.

As the part of the plants introduction we are gathering the seeds of the fire weed and some grasses and herbs we can find around station, town and Duvanii Yar. Also we bought some seeds of grasses from the main land, but so far this experiment didn't prove to work well. Non-native grasses grow well in the first year, but does not renew in the next year. Probably too cold winters for them. But we keep looking for options to find good cold adapted pasture plants. If anyone can advice something - you are welcome. 

Another thing we need to investigate to bring into the park are dung processing insects and bees. Later present in the region, but in small numbers. Enthomologist research/experts are highly appreciated.

According to Eugene Potapov, the CEO of the Pleistocene Park Foundation which hosts this Patreon campaign, almost all perks to Voyagers, Scouts and Rangers were mailed to people (at least to the ones who provided their mailing address). Please give us your mailing addresses if you haven't  yet done so. And please give us feedback when you will receive your merchs. We will be looking for ways to improve if needed. 

Thanks once again for supporting us. I will get back to you shortly before the expedition to the Wrangel Island.

All the best

Nikita