How Pleistocene Park spent last summer!

Dear Friends

Summer season in the Pleistocene Park is over and I think it is time to report on the results which been achieved in the Park in the last month.

Key element of course was our big expedition to bring new animals for the project. Overall almost every expedition which we made in the last fifteen years (approximately then we started to introduce animals from distant places) could be considered as “extreme and complicated”. However as our skills grew expeditions became less extreme but more complicated. And this one was a good example of that.

First part was to purchase and bring to Russia 24 bison. We did same tasks in 2019 and 2021, but this time things became more complicated for political reasons. Now there is no easy was to buy bison in Denmark how we did before. Therefore this time we had to use help of European partners which purchased animals brought them to Hungary (as far as I know only Hungary and Lithuania are still exporting live animals to Russia from Europe). In Hungary bison passed the quarantine and got ready to be taken to the Russian border. There been numerous delays in animal shipment, document preparations, truck arrival, so instead of mid-May animals left Hungary only June 24th. Don’t know how much you follow what is going on in Russia, but exactly that day was a Prigozhin “trip” to Moscow. So at that time I was quiet sure my bison will be stuck in Hungary for a “while”. Anyway “ Prigozhin trip” ended even more suddenly than started and truck with bison successfully entered Russia last day of June.

Second complication of the expedition was to separate those bison. If you think that our expedition was just about bringing 24 bison to the Pleistocene Park then you are wrong. In the truck from Hungary been 32 bison. 8 of them were supposed to go to Altai region to a private reserve (project not related to the Pleistocene Park), 12 were supposed to go to the Pleistocene Park. And last dozen was supposed to go to Yamal region where I planned to exchange them for other animals. So the problem was that animals in the big truck were all mixed together and according to veterinary rules to every location must have arrived specific group of bison.

For logistic reason our separation was done in Novosibirsk. Prior the arrival we designed and ordered total of 5 cages, made out of metal and plywood. Three cages were 4 meters long, and two cages been 6 meters long. All of them had width of 2.5 meters and height of 2.2 meters. All of them been designed using our experience in previous expeditions to have ability to safely keep animals inside, feed them, give them water, clean, have emergency access in case something will be wrong with the animals, and of course enough ventilation to make sure animals are healthy during the trip.

Since it is not easy to separate herd of 32 bison (reminding that they are not cows and not really tame), we rented a small industrial territory which had a good fence around it. Inside we put all 5 cages in the specific form to make sort of a tunnels with 3 different “rooms”. It took us few days to build the whole setup. Idea was that animals will be slowly released to this tunnel and according to their ear tag they will be directed to a specific “room” using two-way doors.

On July 5th truck entered this fenced area, gates were open and truck doors were closed to make sure animals will not escape if (when) something goes wrong. First problem that animals did not really want to leave the truck and it took some time to get them out, and secondly as expected they were freaking out and running through the tunnel trying to break through our wall and gates. At one moment one of the female bison found a weak spot in the tunnel and jumped over the fence. Fortunately after couple circles around the fenced area it relaxed and we managed to slowly walk her back to her “room”. Overall this separation took full day, but finally all animals appeared in the right placed. Bison for the Park were in two 6 meter cages, Yamal bison were in their 4 meters cages, and bison to Altai were returned back to the truck and continued their last bit of journey.

I personally missed this exciting bison management. I was during the tunnel construction but on July 4th I had to fly to Yamal to participate in the third part of the expedition.

I think many of you heard that we had a semi-successful experience with musk ox introduction to the Pleistocene Park. In 2010 we did an expedition to Wrangel island and caught 6 baby musk ox. All of them turned out to be males, and since then all our attempts to brink more musk ox failed (sometimes desperately).

On Yamal there is a Nature Park called Ingilor (had different names in the past). It has two fenced areas which are together about the same size as big fenced area we have in the Park right now. And on this territory they have around 120 musk ox. This is the only fenced population of musk ox in Russia. Population is constantly growing and Ingilor is sometimes releasing animals or giving them to some rewilding programs in the other park of the country. I tried to get access to those animals several times but with now success until this year. We made an agreement with the regional department of nature that I will bring them 12 bison and in exchange they will allow us to catch 15 baby musk ox.

On July 4thI arrived to Salekhard (capital of Yamal) and took a taxi to small town 40km away from the airport where headquarters of the Ingilor was located. There already arrived team of 4 people I hired to catch musk ox. Process required to use guns with tranquilizers to immobilize animals so team consisted of a senior scientist Taras Sipko who is a big specialist in bovines and most of his life spent in expeditions like this one. With him was a two veterinarians Stas in his girlfriend Olga, plus a ranger which used to work this national Park and has a big experience dealing with those specific musk ox herds.

Rest of the day we spent buying supplies and food for the expedition. Next morning rangers of the Ingilor provided a “monster truck” on huge wheels which can fit up to 15 people and can travel offroad, we packed all our supplies and drove the Park. To get to the basecamp one should travel 105 km along the gravel road and then turn left and go around 40km along the trail. There are 3 rivers along the way and quiet some swamps and hills. So no regular vehicle can make this trip.

Basecamp is located in a very pretty location by small mountains and right along small mountain river with a good fish in it. Weather was very warm and sunny despite the fact that the park is located above the arctic circle. Another whole day  we spent preparing at the basecamp. Since the weather was hot veterinarians adviced to work during evening and night hours when it is not that hot. Apparently with for musk ox it is not good to be tranquilized when it is hot outside.

Catching process appeared to be quiet hard. There was lack of experienced people and by the end of day one I was given one of 3 guns to be a part of a catching team, since I had enough experience with animals and rather low fear to be near them. What I had could barely be called a gun – just a long aluminum tube where I inserted a syringe with medicine and a small gas tank with high pressure on the other end. However it worked quiet good and if I could get close enough to animals (like 10-15 meters) I hit “the target” way more often that I could expect. As a background information want to say that I never had any guns and my wife and all of my daughters are always more successful at the shooting attraction in the amusement parks.

Anyway as I said process was quiet hard. Musk ox tend to run away all the time and 10km2 is already a big enough place so it was not easy to catch them. There is a big hill with some rocky slopes and rather dense forest in some place. So animals was not always easy to site. Then another problem that after animals tranquilization we had to load them to this monster truck and take them around 10 km to the other basecamp where was prepared a quarantine zone. And third problem that baby musk ox reacted very differently on the medicine. Some fell asleep within couple minutes or even faster and some had little reaction on the medicine and was running around with a syringe in the leg all day, until we finally managed to shoot them again.

Finally after 3 tough days we got 14 baby musk ox in the quarantine. Animals were left under the supervision from the local ranger  and we left the Park and returned to Salekhard where veterinaries left back home to Moscow the same day and I stayed to wait for the bison to arrive.

While I was catching musk ox two groups of bison continued their journeys. First herd drove with my truck driver Roma and new helper Igor (who is now a head of construction activities on our research station) all the way through Russia to Magadan region. Where cages were unloaded in the Seimchan town and put on a river barge to go down the Kolyma river. And second group of bison on the truck was heading to Yamal lead by Yaroslav who been in numerous expeditions with animals going to the Park already.

So couple days after I finished catching musk ox bison with Yaroslav did arrive. I already had an arrangement with one huge crawling transporter to shuttle bison to the Ingilor and pick up musk ox there.  As I already showed cages with the bison are quiet big and it is impossible to take them with the “monster truck”. Plan was simple truck with the bison reaches the last point along the gravel road, there crane pick up one of the cages with the bison, load it to the crawling transporter. Transporter shuttles bison to the quarantine zone where bison unloads and musk ox are getting picked up. There been 3 cages so we required 3 such trips. Biggest problem with the plan appeared that this crawling transporter was a very old vehicle which wasn’t ready by the time bison arrived and we had to wait for a couple of days for it to get fixed. And during the travel it caused lot of trouble. It was loosing trucks; at some point batteries died and engine would start since generator was dead; engine had no exhaust and occasionally was spitting burning oil, so we had to drive behind and make sure no forest fire will appear. So this vehicle wasn’t my best choice. However I understand that there wasn’t really any other option to transport animals. So had to deal with all the complications. Unload bison itself went well. Bison did not spent too much time in those cages so were ready to leave it once we opened the door.

However with musk ox load it was more complicated. Normally baby musk ox are relatively small (around 50kg) and one can just enter the quarantine area and catch musk ox by hand, and pull it to the cage. But in our case it was not that easy. As I already said during the catching process I was given the tranquilizer gun, and my very first catch wasn’t exactly what we planned to get. Instead of babies which were born this year, I accidentally tranquilized last year male, which was already quiet big, with noticeable horns and was too aggressive to allow just walk in and catch animals by hand. So the process of animals catching and transport to the cage appeared to be complicated. We used a big tarp to separate animals and move them to the chute which ended with a small portable cage which we then carried to the big cage and released animals there.

All 3 trips took us two full days in total . Last trip appeared to be the hardest since we had to catch and move the big musk ox in the last cage. And it took us a lot of courage, efforts we managed only after couple hours of unsuccessful attempts. Finally all bison were roaming in the Ingilor park, and all musk ox were loaded on the truck. Tough two days it was and it was wise to have Yaroslav with me.

After that we had to solve another logistic problem. There was two ways we could transport musk ox. One was the regular road way to Magadan region following Roma but couple weeks behind and another way was to go to Archangelsk to be loaded on the ship and go via Arctic Ocean. Both options had plos and cons. Seimchan route is somewhat more reliable but longer and there is a risk that by the time musk ox will arrive there will be very low water level on the Kolyma and barges will not be able to go along the Kolyma, so animals might get stuck there for weeks waiting for rains and water level to increase. Archangelsk route is shorter in terms of road trip and roads are much better, at the same time big ships are less reliable and last time we used this route in 2021 bison were stuck 3 weeks in Archangelsk waiting to be loaded on the ship. After serious consideration we decided to take Archangelsk route. It is also a bit cheaper and by that time we already started to run out of money after all the expenses we had to take over the expedition. Animals arrived well to Archangelsk but as I was afraid it took them more than 2 weeks to be finally be loaded on the ship and leave. To accompany animals we invited our old Pleistocene Park supporter Nikolay who owns a shop in Moscow which sells various products for different domestic animals (like lizards, ants and all other exotic things). In addition we purchased and located on deck several rolls of hay and enough oats to feed musk ox on the way.

During ship trip there is no connection with the crew, so first time I heard from Nikolay was when he was just 20 km away from our local sea port.

By that time all bison which travelled with Roma arrived to the Park and were successfully released.

Musk ox finally arrived on Sept 9, a month later than bison and two months after they been tranquilized and separated from the herds. Expeditions were long but successful. And animals are now roaming in the Pleistocene Park.

I think the patreon update is getting very long, and I wonder how many of you will make it this far. But want to say that we are now making really a lot of plans to develop Pleistocene Park. Two months ago we started to get official support from one big Russian Charity organization “Andrey Melnichenko Fund” and this helps us really a lot in terms of what we can achieve now.

Starting next year we are going to build a fence around our entire territory (160km2) and going to make numerous expeditions to bring animals. Plus we plan to develop our basecamp and invest a lot into science to prove the concept of the Pleistocene Park and develop best ways to create high productive grazing ecosystems.

I will try to keep you informed on all our activities.

From my side want to thank you all for your support. It is really helpful and big portion of all those I activities (especially the Yamal ones) were covered from the support which you provided.

All the best greeting to you all.

Nikita