Bystrinsky Nature Park, Russia

 

The Bystrinsky Natural Park is the most extensive “specially protected area” of Kamchatka. The park, created in 1995, is located in the central part of the peninsula.

On the territory of the natural park, there is a part of one of the largest mountain ranges of Kamchatka, where coniferous and birch forests, alpine tundra and meadows prevail. The Bystrinsky Park embraced the traditional settlement areas of the Evens - reindeer herders who settled in Kamchatka about 150 years ago. It is considered the only place where indigenous peoples live - Itelmens, Evens and Koryaks. In the village of Esso, you can visit the ethnographic museum, which stores household items and culture of Kamchatka aborigines.

 

Geography

The Bystrinsky Nature Park is located in the central part of Kamchatka on the Sredinny, Kozyrevskiy and Bystrinsky ridges and captures part of the Central Kamchatka depression and the West Kamchatka lowland, and includes the valley of the Bystraya river, the basins of the Anavgai, Tigil, Icha rivers and the active volcano Ichinskaya Sopka. The maximum length from north to south is 142 km, from east to west - 118 km. There are three settlements on the territory of the natural park: the villages of Esso, Anavgay and the seasonal village of Gorny Klyuch, as well as the Ichinsky nature reserve and natural monuments: Larch rosemary - botanical and Apapelskaya stone woman - geological.

 

Climate

Summers are short and hot, while winters are windless and frosty. In January, the average temperature is −19°С, in July — 12-14°С. The average annual rainfall is about 300-400 mm.

 

Thermal and mineral springs

The territory of the park is replete with many thermal and cold mineral springs. There are five most significant groups of thermal springs in the park: Apapelsko-Oksinskaya, Anavgaiskaya, Bystrinskaya, Essovskaya, Kozyrevskaya. Cold mineral springs are also located near the thermal springs. The most valuable and interesting is the Apapelsko-Oksinskaya group - refers to boiling hot springs, with a temperature at the exit to the earth's surface of about 100 ° C. This group is divided into three subgroups: Apapelsky, located in the upper reaches of the Anavgay River, on the right bank of the Right Anavgay River; Nizhneapelsky, located downstream along the Apapel stream at the bottom of the valley of the Right Anavgay river; Oksinsky are located on the left bank of the Anavgai River, at the foot of the Chempura Hill, opposite the Snezhnaya base of geologists.

Cold springs: Uksichanskie, located on the right side of the Uksichan river valley, 20 km from the village of Esso; The Pioneer spring is located on the left side of the Uksichan river valley, one and a half kilometers from the village of Esso. The waters of cold springs belong to the mineral-drinking medical table.

 

Minerals

There are deposits and ore occurrences on the territory of the park, the most valuable of them are gold-silver and mercury.

The Appapel deposit in the northeast of the park belongs to the gold and silver deposit. The rest of the identified objects have been searched and referred to as ore occurrences. This is the "Marina" - at the head of the Bystraya (Kozyrevskaya) River and "Dimshikan-Zayka" in the upper reaches of the Dimshikan 1st stream - the right tributary of the Bystraya (Khairyuzovskaya) River. Insignificant gold and silver ore occurrences are found in the basin of the Uksichan River and the Odyuka Stream. Placers of gold have been found in the sources of the rivers Icha, Uksichan and the stream Odyuka and others, but they have no industrial value.

The object of mercury mineralization is the Chempurinskoye deposit (Chempura Hill). There are also manifestations of mercury in the Kozyrevskiy ridge in the basin of the Odyuka stream. The main and accompanying minerals are native mercury, cinnabar, antimonite, realgar.

 

Flora

Bryophytes
The bryophyte flora of Bystrinsky Park is represented by two divisions: liverworts and mosses. 142 species of liverworts are known, of which 17 are listed in the Red Book of the Kamchatka Territory, two are in the Red Book of the Russian Federation. The list of mosses includes 313 species, of which 13 are listed in the Red Book of the Kamchatka Territory, two in the Red Book of Russia. The taxonomic diversity of the park's bryoflora has been revealed quite fully - approximately 90%.

vascular plants
According to the annotated list of vascular plants of the Bystrinsky Natural Park, which was formed over the period 2008–2014, there were 674 species of vascular plants in the park, included in five divisions - ferns, horsetails, clubs, gymnosperms, angiosperms. Twenty-three species are listed in the Red Book of the Kamchatka Territory, of which 5 species are in the Red Book of Russia. The list is not final and most likely will be expanded after floristic research in the southwestern and hard-to-reach mountainous areas of the park.

 

Fauna

Insects
The preliminary annotated list of insects of the Bystrinsky Natural Park includes 407 species belonging to 81 families from 13 orders. The list is likely to be supplemented by subsequent fees. The list is based on collections collected over several years and photographs of insects from the park. Materials for processing and identifying insects were supplemented by volunteers from Bystrinsky Park: B. Bakharev, V. Burym, K. Backman, V. Zurilina, E. Lepo, V. Lobanova, T. Prokhorova. Ten endemic (for Kamchatka) species and subspecies from 5 orders were recorded in the park: Cavariella kamtshatica Ivanovskaja, Lygocoris malaisei Lindberg, Meloe laevipennis Brandt, Dorytomus rufulus kamtshaticus Kor, Bombus sporadicus malaisei Bischoff, Eupithecia pseudosatyrata Djakonov, Papilio machaon kamts chadalus Alph., Parnassius phoebus kamschaticus Men., Plebejus (idas) kamtschatica Kurentzov, Polyommatus (eros) kamtschadalis Sheljuzhko.

The fauna includes 8 species of insects from the Red Book of the Kamchatka Territory: ground beetle (Carabus macleaji); butterflies: hawk hawk (Hyles galii), kaya bear (Arctia caja), Kamchatka swallowtail (Papilio machaon kamtschadalus), Apollo Phoebus (Parnassius phoebus kamschaticus), large marigold (Oeneis magna); bumblebees: (Bombus sporadicus malaise) and (Bombus schrencki).

Fish
Due to the isolation of the Kamchatka Peninsula from the mainland by glaciers and seas during the Pleistocene, there was no possibility of settling Kamchatka with freshwater fish. The composition of the freshwater ichthyofauna in the rivers and lakes of Kamchatka is very poor. In the rivers and lakes on the territory of the Bystrinsky cluster, 13 species of fish from five families have been recorded: the salmon family - pink salmon, chum salmon, coho salmon, sockeye salmon, chinook salmon, mykizha, Dolly Dolly, kunja; family stickleback - three-spined stickleback and nine-spined stickleback; family smelt - small-mouthed smelt; family graylings - Kamchatka grayling; family carp - silver carp.

Amphibians
Only two representatives of the class of vertebrate tetrapods, amphibians, have been found in the park. These are the Siberian salamander (Salamandrella keyserlingii) or the four-toed newt and the lake frog (Pelophylax ridibundus), brought to the peninsula at the end of the 20th century.

Birds
Ornithological research, which served as the basis for creating an annotated list of birds, was carried out on the territory of the Bystrinsky Natural Park in 1998–2014. During the research, 116 species of birds were identified and registered. In addition, several more species are found in the park, especially during the period of seasonal migrations.

mammals
Mammals of the Bystrinsky Natural Park number a little more than 30 species from 6 orders, including synanthropic species - the gray rat and house mouse. The depleted species composition of mammals and well-defined subspecific endemism is due to the geological history of Kamchatka and the phenomenon of volcanism. One of the features of the mammalian fauna is the presence in the park of four acclimatized species, these are the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), the American mink (Mustela vison), the Canadian beaver (Castor canadensis) and the domestic species - elk (Alces alces).