OJSC 'Northern Caucasus Resorts' will take part in the program of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for the reintroduction of the population of European bison in southern Russia. The program aims to complement existing and create new groups of bison living free in the North Caucasus.
With the support of OJSC «NCR» is planned to bring a group of bison from Okskiy national park to Teberdinskiy State Nature Reserve (Karachay-Cherkessia Republic) in October, 2012. Currently a group of bison on the territory of Teberdinskiy Reserve composed of 13 individuals. There weren’t the importation of new animals in more than 40 years, so they are depressed and need to update the gene pool.
New bison will also arrive to the Tseiskiy wildlife sanctuary (North Ossetia) from Oksko-Terrasniy Preserve. There live more than 40 animals. However, it is necessary to renew the gene pool of this group by means of inclusion in the breeding of new species for saving bison in long-term outlook.
During one month the new arrivals will stay in 5-hectare pens in the sanctuary and nature reserve, to comply with veterinary and sanitary requirements, as well as to help the animals get to know each other and establish a hierarchy in the group. After that, the animals will be released into the wild nature of the Tseiskiy and Teberdinskiy protected areas. Necessity to restore the bison population — the largest land mammal in Europe, the only continent wild bull that survived to the present day, is due to a sharp reduction in the number of this animal: now bison is listed in the Red Book of Russia as a species threatened with extinction. Last wild bison population was destroyed at the beginning of the XX century.
Russian experts had dealt with this problem in the late 1940’s. That time were created two bison farms — in the Okskiy and Prioksko-Terrasniy reserves. By 1991, in the Soviet Union there were already 24 groups of bison living freely — total of about 1,500 individuals, 569 of them — in Russia. But by the middle of 1990’s the number of bison living freely in Russia because of poaching decreased almost threefold to 185 individuals.
Since 1996 WWF Russia, supported by WWF Germany are implementing a program to create a living populations of bison in the forests of the European part of Russia. In the years 1996-2008 the number of bison in Orel, Bryansk, Kaluga, Vladimir regions due to the project exceeded 150 individuals. This quantity is sufficient for the animals to their own population could develop and grow. In 2009, WWF launched a project to restore the European bison in the Caucasus.
***World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) — one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, founded over 50 years ago. WWF annually performs over 1,200 environmental projects around the world, attracting millions of people to environmental problems and their solution.
OJSC «Northern Caucasus Resorts» is the operator of the tourist cluster in the North Caucasus. Under the management of the company are being constructed world-class alpine, beach and spa resorts in the North Caucasus Federal District, Krasnodar territory and the Republic of Adygea.