Pleistocene Park

The Pleistocene Park (Russian Плейстоценовый парк ) is an area on the lower reaches of the Kolyma River south of the settlement Tscherski where a typical landscape of the Pleistocene should again arise in Eastern Siberia. At about 16 square kilometers here live in a fenced area Jakutenpferde, reindeer and moose. In addition, in the fall of 2010 met musk ox from Wrangel Island, and in the spring of 2011 European bison and Altai Morale one. Furthermore, the settlement Siberian tiger is considered. The long term goal is the restoration of a Pleistocene primeval landscape, which was after the Megaherbivorenhypothese typical of the area, but has been lost due to the loss of large herbivores.

It is hoped that the tundra and taiga areas of the park will be transformed by the large number of grazing animals in a mammoth steppe, which disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene, along with numerous large animal species. A fence is to the animals at the exit of the area stop until their populations have become established. You already toying with it, introduce the woolly mammoth as the most important characteristic species of the mammoth steppe, if this could one day be resurrected by genetic engineering methods.

Swell

• E. Marris: Conservation biology: Reflecting the past. Nature 462, 30-32 ( 2009).