If while "Jurassic Park" is a fiction, then "Ice Age Park" is completely real.
In the Siberian tundra in northern Russia, researchers are restoring an ecosystem that existed about 12 thousand years ago, when mammoths still roamed these places. The non-profit foundation "Ice Age Park" or "Pleistocene Park" was founded in 1989 and is mainly funded by government subsidies. The park covers about 2 thousand hectares and plans to expand. This vast area is fenced in for animal safety. Global warming cannot have a significant impact on the restoration of the steppe system, as permafrost contains carbon and grasses reflect sunlight.
The park is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences Northeast Research Station, which is one of the world's largest Arctic research stations. Fifty scientists in three laboratories study Arctic biology, hydrology and geophysics.
The Pleistocene (Ice Age) era began 1.8 million years ago and ended when humans dominated the earth. At the time when mammoths roamed here, steppes prevailed here. When man began to develop agriculture, raise livestock and hunt, the steppe system was destroyed.
“Huge steppe plains and valleys prevailed in the landscape. Mammoths, fur-covered rhinos, bison, horses, reindeer, musk oxen, moose, saigas, yaks grazed on natural pastures under the predatory gaze of cave lions and wolves,”said Sergey Zimov, one of the park's founders and director of the Northeast Scientific Station.
Researchers are restoring the steppe system, planting herbs characteristic of that time, erecting caves and raising animals that lived in that period. These are bison, moose, reindeer, musk oxen, moose, hares, marmots and ground squirrels, as well as predators such as wolves, bears, lynxes and wolverines. In the future, they plan to bring in Amur tigers.
As for mammoths, scientists from Japan's Kinki University are working with Russian scientists to clone them. The plan is to fuse the DNA of a mammoth found in permafrost with the DNA of an elephant and create a new species that is 88% mammoth. When the experiment is successfully completed, a new species of mammoths will inhabit the vastness of the Ice Age Park. Thus, the ecosystem will be fully restored.
Voronina Svetlana
Promotional video:
