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]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Pleistocene Rewilding — promotes the reintroduction of descendants of Pleistocene megafauna, or their close ecological equivalents. Toward the end of the Pleistocene era, between roughly 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, nearly all megafauna of South, Central, North America… …   Wikipedia

  • Pleistocene — The Pleistocene (IPAEng| plaɪstəsi:n) is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years BP covering the world s recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek Polytonic|πλεῖστος ( pleistos most ) and… …   Wikipedia

  • Pleistozän-Park — Der Pleistozän Park (russisch Плейстоценовый парк) ist ein Areal in Ostsibirien am Unterlauf des Flusses Kolyma südlich der Siedlung Tscherski, wo eine typische Landschaft des Pleistozän wiederentstehen soll. Auf etwa 16 Quadratkilometer… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Death Valley National Park — IUCN Category II (National Park) …   Wikipedia

  • Lassen Volcanic National Park — IUCN Category II (National Park) …   Wikipedia

  • Yosemite National Park — Infobox Protected area name = Yosemite National Park iucn category = Ib caption = locator x = 20 locator y = 84 location = Tuolumne, Mariposa, Madera Counties, California, USA nearest city = Mariposa lat degrees = 37 lat minutes = 50 lat seconds …   Wikipedia

  • Grand Teton National Park — Infobox protected area | name = Grand Teton National Park iucn category = II caption = locator x = 75 locator y = 48 location = Teton County, Wyoming, USA nearest city = Jackson lat degrees = 43 lat minutes = 44 lat seconds = 0 lat direction = N… …   Wikipedia

  • Kosciuszko National Park — IUCN Category II (National Park) …   Wikipedia

  • Big Bone Lick State Park — Infobox park park=Big Bone Lick State Park image size=200px caption=A sign for Big Bone Lick State Park type=Kentucky state park location=Boone County, Kentucky coordinates= size=512 acres opened=1960cite book |editor=Kleber, John E.… …   Wikipedia

  • Queen Elizabeth National Park — or Ruwenzori National Park National park, southwestern Uganda. Established in 1952, it has an area of 764 sq mi (1,978 sq km) and lies east of Lake Edward. One of the largest parks in Uganda, it has areas of rainforest and savanna grassland. It… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”