The Putoran State Nature Reserve is located on the territory of two regions of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug - Khatanga and Dudinsky, as well as in the Evenki Autonomous Okrug, in the Ilimsky District. The center of the reserve is completely occupied by the Putorana mountain system. The protected areas have a total area of approximately 1.8 million hectares.
This conservation area today includes 3 cordons: Lake Dupkun, Lake Sobachye and Lake Manumakli. And also 2 hospitals for scientific purposes: Ayan Lake and Kutaramakan Lake.
History of the reserve
The Putoransky Nature Reserve (map above) was formed from a nature reserve with the same name only in 1988, despite the fact that the question of its organization was considered as early as 1970. In 2001, a significant event took place - the reserve received a nomination for the assignment of a status allowing it to be one of the objects of natural and cultural heritage of the UNESCO World Organization.
Putoran Nature Reserve: climate
In the Putorana Reserve, the climate is characterized by a sharp continentality with a high temperature amplitude. This indicator is 100 ° C in the east and 86 ° C in the north. The polar day lasts 74 days (May 16 - July 29), and the polar night - 56 days (November 25 - January 13).
On the Putoran plateau, the geographical zonality is very clearly visible, which can not be said about other regions of Russia. In different parts of the plateau formed their landscapes, significantly different from each other, despite the fact that this territory has the same geological and morphological structure. A plateau is located at the intersection of longitude and latitudinal natural zones. Its southern part is characterized by temperate and subarctic climatic zones, which means the passage here of the main border of two types of landscape belonging to the highest taxonomic rank.
Human activities
The Putorana mountain system, especially when it comes to its southern, northern and eastern parts, was used very widely in the past by the indigenous inhabitants of the region for fishing, hunting and reindeer breeding. Such ways of using natural resources, traditional for the Far North, all the time have impacted in a certain way on the flora and fauna of the mountain plateau. Such anthropogenic impact very clearly affected the change in the number of easily vulnerable species, which in the first place refers to the population of Putorana sheep.
The negative impact of human activities
In the Putoransky Nature Reserve, the charming wildlife of Russia has never been subjected to strong human impact, which allowed the surrounding living natural world to be left almost untouched. In this region, human activity was manifested only in the occupation of indigenous people by fishing, hunting and reindeer breeding.
Nevertheless, as a result of this influence, the number of local endemic, the Putorana sheep, has significantly decreased; the population of moose, wild reindeer, wolverines, ermines, sables, wolves and Arctic foxes has become slightly smaller.
There are few industrial enterprises in this region. Among them, the main object that affects the nature of the surrounding conservation area in a negative way is a large mining and metallurgical plant located in Norilsk. It is located near the western border of the Putoransky Nature Reserve, at a distance of about 150-200 kilometers from it. This enterprise is engaged in the extraction of metal ores and the smelting of metals, therefore there are always emissions of dirty air, which contain oxides of heavy metals, sulfur, carbon and dust.
All this has a very negative effect on nature and ultimately leads to a change in vegetation cover in the western part of both the Putorana Nature Reserve and the conservation zone. In the scientific literature you can find a lot of information about the impact of industrial emissions on local plants, while the reserve staff themselves do not conduct their own research. The exact size of the area that is exposed to harmful industrial emissions has not yet been finally established. According to some preliminary estimates, the work of the mining and metallurgical plant in Norilsk negatively affects approximately 1/10 of the Putoransky reserve and 1/3 of the security zone.
Natural objects
In the reserve, the vast natural plateau of Putorana, which covers an area of about 2.5 million hectares, is considered the central natural site. In Central Siberia, it is considered the largest trap basalt plateau. In the post-Soviet space, nowhere else is a relief of this type observed. It is worth noting that economic activity has never been carried out on a plateau in all history.
Hydrological objects are represented in the reserve by closing river basins - Khatanga, Pyasina and the largest - Yenisei.
The Puritan Reserve has many waterfalls that give it incredible beauty. Here is the highest waterfall in Russia (108 meters).
Numerous lakes of the Putorana Nature Reserve are famous for their uniqueness and great depth, within 180-420 meters.
Vegetation
In the Putoransky Nature Reserve, where the wild nature of Russia is revealed in all its glory, there are 398 higher plants, which makes up 61% of the total plateau flora. Among them, rare plants are worth noting, for example, white-hair poppy, spotted slipper, Rhodiola rosea and Asiatic swimsuit. There are also Putorana endemic species - variegated poppy, Late warbler and Putoran ostrich, among the endemic mountains of Byrranga and Putoran mountain systems - ear fescue, and endemic Siberian North are represented by long-handed dandelion, Taimyr ostrich and long-nosed calf.
Land animals
Putoransky Reserve combines vertebrate taiga, tundra, forest and other widespread animals that live in the mountains. The plateau is the northern border of the distribution of many species, including sable, lynx, common squirrel, elk, goshawk, forest lemming, hazel grouse, capercaillie, stone and common woodpeckers, woodpeckers, hawk owls, black and common cuckoos, and many species from the orders of passerines, sandpipers and other animals.
This region of the northern part of Central Siberia is the main nesting place for the white-tailed eagle and the gyrfalcon. The nests of the curlew are characteristic of the southeastern part, and in the center of the Putorana plateau, a large part of the population of the Putorana snow sheep lives. There are large numbers of bears, wolves and wolverines, which play an important role in local biocenoses.
A unique and very bright phenomenon of the animal world of the Putorana Reserve is the seasonal migration of a large number of wild reindeers. An important part of the range of migration routes is the Putoran plateau, through which almost the entire population of Taimyr deer passes (about 450-480 thousand individuals). On the plateau throughout the year they are about 5-6 months. They pass through a narrow front, ranging from 100 to 150 kilometers, so we can conclude that there is a so-called migration channel, letting through up to 220 thousand wild reindeer every year.
Amphibians: Siberian Coral Tooth
This is the only animal from the amphibian class represented on the Putoran plateau. A characteristic species for the entire taiga region of Russia, distributed to the northern regions to the forest-tundra zone, almost to its northern borders. Nevertheless, the Siberian coal toot is very rare for the northern part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and is often found only in the upper reaches of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in pine forests.
In the center of the Putorana Reserve, this representative of amphibians was discovered in July 1982 on Lake Harpicha. Therefore, the very case of a Siberian coal tooth in the amount of four individuals in the center of the Putoran Mountains at an altitude of 481 meters is a very important event and is of certain interest from the point of view of zoogeography.
Endemic Reserve - Putorana Snow Ram
Putoransky Nature Reserve is the only region where one of the largest little-studied animals in the world lives - Putorana snow sheep, or rhino. It is highlighted here in a separate subspecies and is included in the Red Book of the Soviet Union, and now Russia. Its habitat is the central region of the Putorana Mountains, hundreds of kilometers from the region where the remaining subspecies of the ram are distributed.
Water world Putorana
In the Putoransky Nature Reserve, 36 species of fish are found in river waters. Many endemic species are noted here, for example, Siberian grayling, whitefish and char. Most of them are still insufficiently studied; their taxonomic status has not yet been determined. The presence of many intraspecific forms greatly increases the diversity of fish in this conservation area.
The main protected species
Of the mammals, the following species are most carefully protected: ungulate lemming, bighorn sheep, elk, ermine, reindeer, muskrat, sable, lynx, brown bear. Of the birds - gyrfalcon, piskulka, hawk owl, white-tailed eagle, bearded owl, capercaillie and stone grouse, black crane, black goshawk, and small swan.
The most protected species of fish are represented by Siberian grayling, muksun, Ussuri whitefish and Arctic char, and as for amphibians, only the Siberian lubar is protected.
