Pleistocene Park

Pleistocene Park is the name given to a project in a remote area of Siberia where researchers are attempting to recreate the ecosystem as it existed in the Pleistocene epoch more than ten thousand years ago. The project began in the 1970s and has expanded to include appropriate plant life and a few animal species. The researchers hope to eventually populate the park with live recreations of animals from the Pleistocene period. These scientists are working to create a new version of the woolly mammoth, a hairy elephant-like creature with tusks more than twelve feet long, using preserved deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to crossbreed the extinct animals with contemporary elephants.

Background

The Pleistocene epoch is the name given by scientists to the time from about 2.6 million to around 11,700 years ago. During this period, much of the earth saw alternating periods of climate change. There were ice ages during which glaciers covered large sections of the planet and interglacial periods during which the earth warmed and the glaciers withdrew. The Pleistocene period saw the establishment of many forms of plant life that still exist today, such as certain mosses, conifer or cone-bearing trees, many types of grasses, and a number of other kinds of vegetation.

Many types of animal life similar to twenty-first-century creatures also lived during this time, such as elk and bison. Other creatures resembling modern-day animals also lived but have since become extinct. These included some types of horses and camels, cave lions, Sabre-toothed tigers, and giant sloths. Some forms of life from this time evolved into present-day versions, including Homo sapiens, or humans.

Scientists have been able to study the lifeforms, climate, and other aspects of this period through the fossil remains left behind in places such as the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. Researchers have learned a great deal about the time and have been able to use this information to help understand the earth's climate and potential changes in contemporary times.

Although fossil records from the Pleistocene period are well preserved and scientists have been able to study the records to learn much about the era, many questions remain. During the 1960s, researchers engaged in debate about the fate of the largest and possibly most famous animal from this time, the woolly mammoth. Some felt the animal died off when cold temperatures eliminated the grassy plains where it fed. Others felt that the increased proficiency of human hunters led to the animal's extinction. In the 1970s, Russian scientist Sergey Zimov developed a plan to answer the question. Zimov moved his family to a remote region of Siberia and began efforts to restore the plant and animal life in the area to that which would have existed during the Pleistocene epoch. In effect, he wanted to create a real-life version of the Pleistocene era just as fictional scientists created the dinosaur-filled world of Jurassic Park in the book and movie screenplay by Michael Crichton.

Overview

Pleistocene Park is part of the Northeast Science Station, which was established in 1977 along the Kolyma River south of Chersky in the Sakha Republic in the northern part of Siberia in Russia. The park was formally founded in 1989 with the assistance of government grants. Since then, the park has grown to cover more than four thousand acres.

The temperature in this area ranges from about 85 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer to about minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. It also has a sparse human population. These conditions make the area suitable for growing the meadows and steppes, or flat grassy lands with few, if any, trees that were the perfect home for the large grazing animals that lived during the Pleistocene era.

The scientists working in the three laboratories in the area have replanted the region with grasses, mosses, lichens, and other plants like those that would have grown during the Pleistocene era. They dug deep caves in an attempt to encourage the restoration of the permafrost, or thick layer of permanently frozen ground under the surface, that helped maintain the correct conditions for the Pleistocene species. Since 1988, scientists have also been reintroducing animal species to the area that are similar to those that lived more than ten thousand years ago, including elk, moose, horses bred for cold conditions, bison, musk ox, and reindeer.

Scientists also hope to use a variation of a cloning technique to bring back the largest extinct animal from that period, the woolly mammoth. Researchers have already determined that a real-life drive-through dinosaur zoo such as that portrayed in the book and movie Jurassic Park cannot be accomplished. The fictional dinosaurs were created by using DNA found in fossilized remains, and scientists have determined that DNA becomes too unstable to do that within about seven million years. However, the Pleistocene epoch ended less than seven million years ago; therefore, it could be possible to use preserved DNA in an appropriate fossilized specimen to help genetically engineer an animal similar to those that have gone extinct. In 2015, researchers were able to sequence the DNA of a woolly mammoth. They are working to extract some viable DNA in the form of sperm cells from well-preserved mammoth remains and use those to fertilize the egg of an elephant. In time, scientists would be able to breed the offspring of the resulting animal to create something close to the mammoths that roamed the earth until about ten thousand years ago. Scientists from a high-tech company came a step closer to bringing back the woolly mammoth in 2024. They created a stem cell for the mammoth's closest relative, the Asian elephant. Scientists hoped to create additional stem cells and use gene editing and cloning techniques to manipulate the cells to create an elephant with the woolly mammoth's characteristics.

Scientists supporting the park say that finding ways to restore the grasslands and permafrost that were part of the Pleistocene era are important to staving off global warming. They point out that areas covered by lighter-colored grass reflect more of the sun's heat, while darker forested areas draw it in. In addition, the permafrost layer serves to help cool the planet, these researchers say, making areas such as Pleistocene Park a key strategy for reducing the greenhouse effect. They also say that knowledge gained during the attempt to revive the extinct mammoth could be useful in helping other animals avoid extinction. Some scientists are urging the creation of similar parks in other parts of the world, including in North America.

Opponents question the wisdom of reviving an extinct species, however. They note that there could be other, unknown reasons why certain species died off. They also point out that the potential benefits to the planet of having the cold weather of the park can be maintained with existing species, such as those already living in Pleistocene Park.

Bibliography

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"Pleistocene Park and the North-East Scientific Station." Pleistocene Park, www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

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Stein, Rod. "Scientists Take a Step Closer to Resurrecting the Wooly Mammoth." NPR, 6 Mar. 2024, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/06/1235944741/resurrecting-woolly-mammoth-extinction. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.

Treu, Zachary. "Welcome to Pleistocene Park: Russian Scientists Say They Have a 'High Chance' of Cloning a Woolly Mammoth." PBS Newshour, 14 Mar. 2014, www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/welcome-pleistocene-park-russian-scientists-say-high-chance-cloning-woolly-mammoth/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

Zimov, Sergey A. "Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth's Ecosystem." Science, 6 May 2005, science.sciencemag.org/content/308/5723/796.1.full. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.