Comments on: Saigas, Mammoths, and Pleistocene Parks

By: Ann Unknown

Ann Unknown — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:27:23 +0000

Better late than never - Very good point, pgb7112000. They would be more at home in a temperate zone - if there was still one left with adequate vegetation, and not urbanized. And, I still think that the little known Portuguese Sorraia Horse would be a far better choice, than the proposed species, Equus przewalskii, or the Heck brother's "Tarpan"(only a mixed pony breed, modern analog for the original), or the Polish Konik (also, mostly, a modern recreation) for the extinct Tarpan of Europe. The Sorraia is also in more desperate need of preservation than the two recreated forms.

By: Lightning Orb

Lightning Orb — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:53:18 +0000

Wow. I’ve never seen a saiga either; looks like something I’d expect to find in Star Wars. Interesting article – hope the park succeeds

By: pgb7112000

pgb7112000 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:41:41 +0000

This will only end in tragedy for these ‘reintroduced’ animals. While pictured on TV as flourishing in colder climates, Woolly mammoths and rhinos need tremendous amounts of vegetation in order to survive. Something they will not find in northern Siberia. The climate was much different during the Pleistocene than it is now in that area, and it changed quickly when it was over. That’s why we find mammoths frozen in the tundra. They can’t live in colder climates. The caging or whatever you want to call it of these animals in that part of Russia, is the equivalent of sentencing Russian political prisoners to the Gulag. They won’t come back alive.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:33:59 +0000

Great post. I suspect that you and Darren will still be discussing the fine points of mammalian nostril configuration when some cleaver genetic engineer figures out how to reprogram that which was previously knowns as “junk DNA’s” instructions which we are beginning to recognize controls the morphology of the beasts in question more than just mutations to the 20,000 genes we all seem to be using in such mysterious ways.
I’ve been following Josh Donlon’s proposals for some time and find a lot of merit in them, and an almost insurmountable wall of resistance even from the conservation wilderness and environmental community, but it’s slowly eroding as reason and natural history become more and more critical to our better understanding of the past and presumably our future.
I do differ in my reasoning from a number of those who are proposing the restoration of these landscapes using surrogates or even genetically engineered verersions. Whether they are exact or not is of some interest, but the function that these significant players had in these ancient ecosystems is of even greater interest to me and others, since the functional relevance of these now extinct forms is not altogether gone, but rather waiting dormant for the return of animals to fill those niches which had existed for so long. There are still communities of animals and plants which are still there which would become revitalized, synergized, and the fuller potential of the sytem could once again be realized, no matter if the camelid that orignally inhabited North Dakota was a guanaco or a bactrian (I suspect there were both and others all doing their distinctively cameloid thing in the arid open counties now occupied by cattle and horse (a great example of a specie’s regained vitality when re-introduced after thousands of years back into the habitat for which it had been adapted).
I have to admit, however, that I’m not all that sold on one of the primary reasons for reconstruction; to replace what humans had allegedly overhunted. I’m sure some populations have been exteripated by primitive human practices harvesting the megafauna but the likelihood of cosmic impact looks more and more like the smoking gun, even if they haven’t located the bullet hole yet.
The best reason to attempt to reconstruct the pleistocene in a limited fashion is the same as with all science; to better understand the world in which we live. I don’t think a guilt trip from 12.9 thousand years ago is all that defensible and will be shown to be less relevant as the evidence continues to mount for the cause to have been the impact of a cometary bolide. Better it should serve as an example of why it’s a good thing to create widespread habitat for megafauna so it can survive the next one. We should be so lucky ourselves.

By: Rogutaan

Rogutaan — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:52:46 +0000

Although the name Saiga sounds familiar, I’ve never actually seen a picture of them. That certainly is a very interesting animal.

By: Munnin

Munnin — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:10:28 +0000

Excellent post, as usual. Thanks! I first learned about the Saiga antelope when I happened to be visiting family in Ireland back in the mid-1980s. RTE (Irish Television and Radio) were showing older, Russian nature films on television, and I found them to be very entertaining, despite their spotty production values (compared to their US analogues). This is also how I learned about the endlessly fascinating Lake Baikal.

By: sschaper

sschaper — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:29:57 +0000

I don’t know about using the American bison to replace the European wisent, when the wisent still exist and need all the help that they can get. Interbreeding would be inevitable, I would think.

Likewise with the African elephant in North America: The Asian elephants are the closest to the mammoth by a good deal. the North American camelids – if I recall from my boyhood visits to museums in Nebraska, correctly, were much more like the guanaco of the southern Argentine pampas than the Bactrian camel.

By: aspenparkland

aspenparkland — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:20:40 +0000

There's also a project in France: Palaeolithic Park comes to France The website, is here Also, Elk Island National Park sent Wood Bison to Pleistocene Park

By: red_pill_junkie

red_pill_junkie — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:02:12 +0000

Wow, that mongolian saiga looks really weird! I had never seen a photo of this animal, and if I had found it somewhere else, I might have concluded it to be a hoax. Thanks Loren