Near Strezhevoy, Russia Photograph by Children's Strezhevoy Internet Club   Palaearctic Boreal Forests/Taiga   644,900 square miles (1,670,400 square kilometers) -- about the size of Alaska Relatively Stable/Intact

· Down in the Bogs
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Down in the Bogs

Contrary to what you might think, Siberia is not all ice and permafrost. This ecoregion, in fact, contains the largest swamps and bogs in the world, making up 40 percent of the entire ecoregion. Many animals are well adapted to these wetland conditions.

Special Features

This ecoregion contains hills to the north and flat plains to the south. A little less than half of this ecoregion is made up of bogs, with belts of taiga forest growing like ribbons along the rivers. The trees of taiga forests are widely spaced with an understory of dwarf shrubs, and carpets of mosses and lichens covering the ground.

	Caribou and reindeer are the same species. Reindeer are domesticated caribou that are used by humans for meat, milk, and pulling sleds. They generally are smaller and have shorter legs than their wild cousins. In Siberia, caribou are often referred to as "wild" reindeer.

Wild Side

Four species of amphibians, two species of reptiles, more than 220 species of birds, and 70 mammal species all make their homes in this ecoregion. All of these creatures depend on the wetlands as a food source. These include European beavers, water voles, muskrats, willow ptarmigans, and numerous species of ducks and shorebirds. More wide-ranging mammals include moose and caribou.

Cause for Concern

Northern taiga forests in this ecoregion remain relatively untouched. However, the southern taiga has been mostly clear-cut or burnt. Continued timber harvesting and man-made fires, as well as oil and gas drilling, hunting, and poaching are the main threats to this ecoregion’s biodiversity.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.