The Taimyr Nature Reserve has a difficult history of creation. Today it covers an area of more than 1.5 thousand hectares, and rare representatives of flora and fauna listed in the Red Book are protected in these territories. The official foundation date is 1979, it was then that a reserve was created with the aim of a detailed study and conservation of forests, mountain, tundra and lowland ecosystems.
History of creation
Back in 1939, researchers decided to create a large reserve on the Taimyr Peninsula. Its discovery was planned for 1943, but, unfortunately, the war crossed out all plans. Then the question of creating a protected zone was raised in 1949, but all the developments of scientists were rejected, because the state was just reducing the area of systems of protected territories. More than once, the Taimyr Biosphere Reserve fell into the spotlight. The territory was planned to be expanded to 10 million hectares in order to protect not only rare animals and birds, such as wild reindeer, musk ox, goose goose, but also the entire ecosystem of the Taimyr tundra, starting from the Byrrang mountains and up to the Arctic coasts.
In 1979, it was still possible to officially register the Taimyr Nature Reserve. This included the Logatskoe and Verkhnetaimyr forestries, the branches "Lukunsky" and "Ary-Mas". In 1994, coastal and foothill arctic tundra were attached to the reserve as a protection zone. Today, researchers are doing everything possible to expand protected areas.
Natural landscapes of the reserve
The security zone is located on the Taimyr Peninsula. The organizers managed to cover a wide variety of landscapes: the southern, arctic and typical tundra, forest-tundra. The Taimyrsky nature reserve is located on the territory of permafrost, which reaches about 0.5 km. The security zone is mainly located on a flat relief, it is there that the rivers that are tributaries of the Khatanga flow. Here is the largest lake Taimyr, as well as several smaller lakes.
Climate Taimyr
The climatic features of the Taimyr Reserve largely depend on the polar night phenomenon. In this territory, it lasts a little more than two months, the polar day lasts for 83 days. On the Taimyr Peninsula, winter lasts up to 10 months, sometimes up to 8. But summer basically comes at the end of June and lasts through August. In winter, in flat areas, the temperature is kept within -45 ° С, and in the mountains the thermometer drops to -60 ° С. In summer, there is a sharp warming, a temperature of up to +30 ° C is possible, but it persists for no more than a week.
Flora and fauna of Taimyr
The vegetation cover of the reserve is very diverse. The security zone is divided into southern, typical and arctic tundra. In the coldest Arctic part of the plants there are not so many. Here, mainly mosses, tangled and snowy moss, alpine foxtail, polar willow are found. The typical tundra is richer, here you can find several varieties of mosses, arctosiberian sedge, point dryad. The southern territory is striking in the greatest variety, since thickets of yernik, alder and willow are found on it, there is also red currant and dogrose. On the mountain slopes you can find the Dyke vesicle, the fragile vesicle, the odoriferous thyroid and other northern ferns.
Although the climate is cold and harsh, the Taimyr Nature Reserve is rich in beasts. The animals are mainly represented by wild reindeer, musk ox, ermines, there are also wolves, lynxes. The main food of predators and at the same time the most important living creature in the tundra is lemmming. In the reserve, birds and animals are found in such large numbers that it is not even clear how such a poor-looking nature can feed them. Although this only seems so, in fact, there is a high biological productivity of plants, there are a lot of fish in rivers and lakes, mouse-like rodents breed quickly, so they can feed many white owls, arctic foxes, falcons and other mammals and feathered predators.
Red Listed Animals
The Taimyr Nature Reserve has sheltered many representatives of the fauna on the verge of extinction. Scientists are doing everything in order to increase their population. From mammals, the Laptev subspecies of walrus, polar bear, and musk ox were included in the Red Book. There are a lot more birds: red-breasted goose, white-tailed eagle, peregrine falcon, small swan, small squirrel, Siberian eider, gyrfalcon, rodent, pink and fork-tailed gulls, Icelandic sandpiper, etc.
What is worth seeing on the Taimyr Peninsula?
You can talk a lot about the reserves of Russia, but it is better to see all this beauty with your own eyes once. Taimyr is far away, but still it’s worth allotting time to visit it, because there are so many interesting places. First of all, it is recommended to go to museums. The first is devoted to ethnography and nature, the second to research on mammoths, and the third to the Dolgan poetess Ogduo Aksenova. In the protection zone, you can look at the walrus rookeries of the Laptev subspecies, forests located in the northernmost part of the world. On the Dyabyak-Tari River, there are fossils of marine fauna that belong to the Jurassic period.
Not all reserves in the world and Russia have as many interesting places to visit as there are on the Taimyr Peninsula. On the Upper Taimyr River you can visit the ancient site of deer hunters, there are also completely abandoned settlements in the middle of the twentieth century. Many will be interested in looking at the ruins of the wintering expedition of Khariton Laptev and explorers, as well as at the polar stations of Expectation Bay, which are closed during this period. Also of great interest are the inhabitants of the reserve themselves. Here you can watch birds and animals all day, they are not at all afraid of people, so you can look at them from close range.
