Woolly Mammoth Population Doubles

If you travel to the Siberian taiga forest, chances are you might just run into a Wooly Mammoth. In fact, if you see one of the 6 tonne, 14-foot tall hairy beasts, you will almost certainly see more of them. The current count of the Greater Turkic herd is 50 - that’s more than double that of 10 years ago, and a far cry from the eight first introduced by the Moscow Zoo. Those who doubted the Mammoth’s ability to adapt to the modern vegetation couldn’t have been more wrong. These animals are thriving.    

The taiga forest, a subarctic region just south of the Arctic Circle, has proven to be the perfect habitat for the resurrected Mammoth population.  But it is not only the Mammoths who are loving the taiga forest. Their seasonal migration route has become a major tourist attraction that regularly draws in large crowds throughout the year and peaking during the herd seasonal migration. These eager patrons have provided a Mammoth-sized growth in the local economy. An area once popular only for reindeer herders has become a cultural hub of flourishing food vendors frequented by the tourists who stop in to eat before heading back to civilization.   

Of course, it is the Mammoths who are the real stars here. The herd is still led by the  Mammoths bred in Moscow Zoo all those years ago. Who would have thought that the two scruffy calves named Pieter and Mossy in a local kindergarten competition would go on to lead a herd’s mass migration in remote Siberia? The story has captured the hearts of the locals to such an extent that rumors persist of movie adaptation in the works. Who doesn’t love the return of the mammoth?  

Well, Siberian natives are increasingly skeptical. Many have noted how the herd’s grazing territory is coming close to settlements. ‘It would only take one of them to ruin a house,’ one local told us. ‘And what happens if the herd changes route? 50 of them coming through a town won’t be good for anyone’.  

Those with a keen memory might remember how the scientific community was once split on the revival of the Mammoth. The decision to implement the ‘de-extinction’ program had many questioning the reasoning behind the endeavor. At the time people claimed the reintegration of the Mammoth would help combat climate change by returning the northern taiga region into grassland, as it had been when the Mammoth’s first roamed. 

It appears the Mammoths are yet to transform the northern tundra, but the more southerly taiga region is defrosting at a faster rate in the summer than before the Mammoths returned. Whether or not the Mammoths are benefitting the climate - the scientific community is once again split. But there is one thing we can all agree on, there’s nothing like seeing a herd of Mammoths passing through!