Pleistocene Park mid-summer Report.

Greetings everybody!

Our region did get in the world news a lot this summer. According to media it is extremely hot this year. Not sure it is the hottest summer in the Pleistocene Park. But it is very dry for sure.  In May—June there been barely any rain and in the middle of June there been around 10 days of hot weather (the heat wave mentioned in the media). It didn’t get to +38C as in other parts of the Arctic, but +30 is rather untypical  June temperature too. First part of July was in contrast rather chilly ( around +10-15C) which is comfortable (at least on our standards), and there been some rain. However now it is hot again and forecast say that at least 6 more days it will stay like this.

Another quiet important feature of this summer is the forest fires. In the past several years Russian east been suffering from the forest fires much more than usual (thanks to the climate change). But our northern region had no fires for many years. Aboveground biomass of the local forest is not that high, and it been rather moist. And this year situation has changed. As I now write the report I smell the smoke, which is coming from the forest fire which is about 60km south from here (30km from the Park). And it is the third fire this year in relatively close proximity to the Park and the Station. None of them had any direct effect on the Park (there been one indirect, but will report on the issue in the autumn), but not sure what will happen in the future. As I said temperature is projected to be hot and dry. There is no water bodies in between the Park and the current fire. So will see what will happen. Overall I do not mind fires. Since they renew the climax ecosystems, and former forest fires create very good pastures. However we don’t want our fence to burn downs, same with all other infrastructure. And of course not mentioning the animals. So if there will be direct threat to the Park, we will have to manage the fire somehow, and move all the animals to the small fences, where there is nothing to burn.

As a side note – in the high productive grazing ecosystems fires doesn’t occur. There is no litter on the ground left from the previous years, and green grass doesn’t really burn. So I think in our most densely grazed territories fire is not a problem.  Only issue is to gather all animals there in case it will be needed.

Apart from that there is not that many news from the Park. Animals are roaming. This year mosquitoes are not as bad as previous years, so it is more comfortable for animals.  

We did get babies in the Park, but in lower numbers than we expected. There is 3 foals, 2 cows and 1 yak (not mentioning several sheep which been born in February). There was one more foal and cow, but they died shortly after birth. Both cows and yaks are still adapting to the new place, and hopefully in the future they will give birth more regularly, and with horses, it is rather common that females give birth only every second year in this region. 

Apark workers are repairing fences and doing routine maintenances of all infrastructure. We got first 30 rolls of hay to the Park, but hope we will be able to get 30-40 rolls more. There is no place to cut hay near the park so I order hay in rolls from up the Kolyma river (1500km up from Cherskii), and then the hay is transported by barges. Only issue is that there is not that much water in the Kolyma in the upper stream, and barges sometime can’t pass.  However even if there will be no more hay, it is not the end of the world. We already sent one container with concentrated forage from Archangelsk, and one more is planned in the autumn. It will be enough to make sure animals will not starve in the winter, regardless of any extreme weather events.

Our Musk Ox expedition preparations are underway. Boat I bought in Magadan, is at the peer next to the station. So far it proved to be a good buy. We need to do some minor improvements in it (changing to a cargo propeller, installing heater etc.) and it will be ready to go.

New engine for the second boat has arrived recently and our station mechanic is now working on replacing it. Replacement is almost done, and within a week I think we will start testing it. Need to paint the boat before it will go down on the water too. 

Also we submitted papers to the governmental veterinary services and Ministry of Nature to receive all required papers for animal import. Plus to the Russian border service, to receive permission for the expedition itself. Hopefully everything will come on time. 

Since catching musk ox is not the easiest of all tasks, and require a lot of physical endurance, started to run every day (every second day in reality). And requesting the same from the filming crew which is coming to the expedition. You can’t film the musk ox catchment if you can’t outrun musk oxJ 

Also there was the request from one of the patrons to give more explanation of what kind of territories we have fenced in the Park. 

Attached are two images from the Google Earth. Broad view has the borders of the Park, location of the Research Station, and areas which burned this year.

Black border is the territory which we own (144km2), Red is the biggest fences area (around 20km2) which was built in 2005-2006. Blue is the oldest fenced area which was built in 1996-1997. It has the highest impact of animals. And green one is the 2018 additional exclosure.  At some point we understood that we don’t have enough resources to populate entire big fence area and maintain animals in high enough density to create ecosystem shift and we started to focus on the smaller area converting them at the same time. 

In the oldest fenced area we keep solely the animal influence on the landscape, then the green territory is more the subject of experiments. there we test how can we accelerate the process. There is usually high density of animals. In addition we plant addition seeds there, increase land fertility and clearing the shrublands allowing grasses to grow. 

Second image is the close up of the first image. Fenced area in the Park is pretty much divided into floodplain (northern part) and upland (southern part). I marked the border in between with the yellow line.  Floodplain is the home for horses, and occasionally bison, cows and yaks. Upland is the place where there is some reindeer and some moose (but numbers are not clear). In the eastern part of the upland there is a 1981 fire scar. This little piece of land is the only upland territory where horses show up regularly. There is still lots of dead trees standing or laying on the ground, but in between there is juicy grass and juicy willow shrubs.  In the big fenced area this territory did get the highest animal impact. We would want animals to visit other upland parts too, but so far their number hasn’t been sufficient. However we do have evidences that upland territories convert to high productive grassland better than lowlands. There is much higher variety of vegetation species in the upland and we visually see increase in productivity from year to year. For example the upland in the oldest 1996 year fence is our best territory which I show to every visitor. It been moss/Labrador tea dominated landscape and now it looks like savannah with nice grasses and short willow shrubs. 

I think these are all the news from the Park up to date. 

Now to the Patreon campaign news. 

First of all as of the current state there is 223 people supporting our project on Patreon. Want to thank everyone who subscribed, and want to greet all the new subscribers. 

According to Patreon records we now have 24 people who reached “Voyager of the Steppe” status, 5 “Scouts of the Steppes” and two “Rangers of the Steppes”. Moreover there will be more than 30 new “Voyagers” on the August 1. That is the great achievements, and for all those people we are preparing some stickers, T-shirts, Hoodies and other nice features.  All Voyagers and Scouts been contacted few days ago asking to provide their mailing address and t-shirt size/gender. Most people replied, but some still didn’t so please do. 

Also now all TIERS has their special LOGO. All Voyagers and above will get those in the form of stickers. 

In the end thanks to everyone one more time and I am sure that with your help we can develop Pleistocene Park faster and better

All the best

Nikita Zimov