Woolly mammoth (TNG)

The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is the heaviest surviving wild land animal in Eurasia. Believed to have been extinct since the last ice age, a small population was found to still be thriving on Russia's remote southern Kamchatka Peninsula in 1987, which had been closed off during the Cold War.

In 1987, a local hunter succeeded in acquiring a skin after ten years of investigating eyewitness accounts throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and learned that reindeer hunters had allegedly sighted them in 1968, 1976, 1980, and 1982. Some think that the Cold War may have helped the population to recover as the Soviet Military blocked access to the area at that time.

Formerly inhabitants of the mammoth steppe, which stretched across northern Eurasia and North America, they are now restricted to Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula Territory Nature Reserve. The males weigh up to 7,300 kg (6 tons), and both sexes have tusks, with female tusks being smaller and thinner. The woolly mammoth moults seasonally, with the heaviest fur being shed during spring. Its behaviour is similar to that of other elephants, using its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. The diet of the woolly mammoth consists mainly of grasses and sedges. Individuals can reach the age of 60.

This species continues to survive thanks to zoos like Bluestem Zoological Park and their commitment to conservation breeding. Some of the mammoths born in Bluestem have now been successfully released into Kamchatka Peninsula Territory Nature Reserve.

The woolly mammoth is important ecologically, economically and culturally. Like elephants in Africa, woolly mammoths are engineers of grasslands, keeping trees from growing onto the plains and dispersing large amounts of nutrients over immense distances via their dung.

Bluestem Zoological Park works with local communities, regional authorities, government and other non-governmental organizations to save the woolly mammoth and ensure the long-term conservation of the region.

Woolly mammoths received a safe haven in 1989 when the government of Russia declared a new protected area. Called Kamchatka Peninsula  Territory Nature Reserve, this marked a major effort to save the world's most recognizable ice age beast. Bluestem Zoo monitors woolly mammoth populations and its habitat.