#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Researchers from the Taymyr Reserves directorate are preparing a report on research on the Putorana plateau, which is being carried out with financial support from Nornickel under the Biodiversity programme. The red-listed Putorana snow sheep is a unique animal that lives only on the Taimyr peninsula.
The report by Mikhail Bondar, deputy director of Taimyr Nature Reserves directorate, focuses on the latest research that has been conducted since 2016. The project Save the Thick-backed Thoroughbred Together was supported by the World of New Opportunities grant programme of Nornickel. The grant amounted to almost five million roubles.
Over three weeks, the volunteers walked 1146 kilometres across the little-explored areas of the Putorana plateau. In total, they managed to observe 68 individuals.
“One of the key industrial companies in the Arctic could not ignore rare species”, said Mikhail Bondar about Nornickel’s programme to study and assess the biodiversity of the regions where the MMC’s operations are located.
By 2022, Norilsk scientists had accumulated extensive archival material for all years of research and in 2024 had already obtained valuable data on the state of the declining animal’s population.
“As the data from modern research by Taimyr Reserves together with Nornickel show, these optimistic estimates of the number of Putorana snow rams at the beginning of the 21st century were wrong. Most likely, the number of individuals of this subspecies does not exceed one thousand”, Mikhail Bondar explained.
“The study of the red-listed species inhabiting the Putorana plateau is part of Nornickel’s partnership programme for systematic work with nature reserves in the regions where it operates, in particular with the joint directorate of Taymyr Nature Reserves, in the Biodiversity area as part of its environmental and climate change strategy”, said Stanislav Tsarenko, head of the Environmental Control Division of the Industrial Ecology Department of the Polar Division. “By supporting the four-year programme to study the status of the snow sheep population, the company aims to contribute to a favourable environment and biodiversity conservation. Having a rare red-listed species that forms a unique subspecies in the Putorana region, it is impossible to ignore the need to study it”.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Angelika Stepanova, Photos: Mikhail Bondar and Nikolay Shchipko
