Pleistocene Park

Pleistocene Park

Pleistocene Park in the Sakha Republic in northern Siberia is an attempt by Russian researcher Sergey Zimov to reproduce the ecosystem that flourished during the last ice age, with hopes to back his theory that hunting, and not climate change, destroyed the wildlife.

Russian scientists are restoring the old ecosystem with plants and animals that thrived in the region 10,000 years ago. Japanese and Russian scientists hope to clone woolly mammoths, and to re-introduce them to the park. However, they have yet to find intact mammoth DNA to use for cloning.

So far, the scientific crew has successfully introduced reindeer, moose, musk oxen and yakut horses to the region, and the introduction of American bisons (instead of the extinct steppe bisons) is ongoing. Future introductions include saiga antelopes, yaks and siberian tigers.

Pleistocene Park is a 160 km2 scientific nature reserve ("zakaznik"), owned and administered by a non-profit corporation, Pleistocene Park Association, consisting of the ecologists from the Northeast Science Station in Chersky and the Grassland Institute in Yakutsk. The reserve is surrounded by a 600 km2 buffer zone that will be added to the park by the regional government, once animals have successfully established.

Animals to be introduced to the park:
Carnivores:

Lynx,
Amur Leopard,
Siberian Tiger,
Asian Lion,
Grey Wolf,
Red Fox,
Asiatic Black Bear,
Eurasian Brown Bear,
Wolverine.
Herbivores

Reindeer,
Saiga Antelope,
Amur Deer,
Elk,
American Bison,
Moose,
Yak,
Bactrian Camel,
Llama,
Musk Ox,
Przewalski's Horse,
Yakutian Horse,
Icelandic Pony and Heck Horse/Konik, for extinct Tarpan.

Similar projects

* There are "Bronze Age Parks" in Britain. In these sites, people can see reproductions of proto-historic tools, fields and houses. Farms are inhabited by "Bronze Age pigs" (offspring of wild boars and domestic pigs), and there are feral cattle and Przewalski's horses grazing in the near areas.
* In 2005, ecologist Josh Donlan, from Cornell University, proposed a Pleistocene Park on the North American great plains in 50 years. Proposed species include the Bolson Tortoise, Bactrian Camel (for American camel), Przewalski's horse, cheetah (for "Miracinonyx"), lion (for "American lion") and Indian elephant (for Columbian Mammoth).

Pleistocene Parks in fiction

The name "Pleistocene Park" appeared several times in pure sci-fi stories. One example is novel "Pleistocene Redemption" by Dan Gallagher. These fictional stories resembling Jurassic Park are very dissimilar to the Siberian project described above.

External links

* [http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/050506_mammoth_park.html Pleistocene Park Could Solve Mystery of Mammoth's Extinction]
* [http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-hswild184388301aug18,0,5646571.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines American Pleistocene Park news]
* [http://www.sfsite.com/02b/ple51.htm SF site - The Pleistocene Redemption review]
* [http://www.faculty.uaf.edu/fffsc/park.html Official Site]


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