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CONSERVATION NEWS
2024
ENDANGERED MARMOT REINTRODUCTION
Mongolian marmots (Marmota sibirica), are a federally listed endangered species and keystone ecosystem engineers that modify habitat by building extensive burrowing system. They are associated with greater density and diversity of vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant population. Steppe Wildlife and Shared Earth foundation were able to reintroduce 20 more individuals of Mongolian marmot in June, 2023. Since 2018, we introduced over 120 individuals in 5 areas of Khalzan soum and conducted automat camera monitoring work since first reintroduction work.
SNOW LEOPARD MITIGATION PROJECT IN KHOVD
Steppe Wildlife tour was started to our photographic and wildlife watching tours based in Jargalant Mountain, Mankhan Soum, Hovd Province in 2017. The Jargalant Mountain lies next to Khar Us Lake, which became a National Park in 1997. SWRCC colaboate Hoshoon Ar community with living people in Jargalant Mountain. We have been doing a mitigation program between snow leopard and local people with tourist profit. In 2024, Shared Earth Foundation funded the mitigation project to support one motorbike to a ranger of Khar Us lake and one motorbike and a binocular for two local spotters and one spotting scope for the “Hoshoon Ar” community. Also,100 sack bags of rough bran cattle feed to 23 local families who are living in Jargalant mountain.
RAPTOR ARTIFICIAL NEST MONITORING
We set up 100 artificial nest boxes in Khalzan, Sukhbaatar Province in November 2023. By beginning of May, 2024, the nest boxes colonized 60 nests (60%) that included saker falcon 58%, upland buzzard 30% and common raven 18%. We set the leg band in the right legs of 36 Saker falcon fledglings on 11 artificial nest boxes in June, 2024. By the beginning of July, 76.6% of nestlings that we were recorded to survive until fledgling. Artificial nest colonization observed mostly flat lower elevation of Khalzan soum. This project is supported by Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor conservation fund.
EDUCATIONAL WORK OF ARTIFICIAL NESTS AMONG LOCAL PEOPLE
The raptors artificial nest Project includes a set of educational programs to inform our communities about raptors and their importance, and the core of this work is a set of environmental education programs for middle schools and high schools and local communities of Khalzan soum in 30th of March, 2024.During the wildlife educational day, we give a talk that raises awareness about the importance of raptors, how to protect them and the importance of wildlife conservation. In addition, we also organized wrestling, essay writing and drawing contests among school children of Khalzan soum. In that event, we noticed that more adult participants than compared to other wildlife educational days.
2023
ARTIFICIAL NEST PROJECT
In 2023, under preparatory work for this project, SWCRC erected 100 nests in a grid in the Khalzan district of Sukhbaatar province in Eastern Mongolia. Local herders participated in the building nests, annual monitoring and maintenance of these nest under training and direction from SWCRC. The aim was to reduce the number of nests that are removed by herders for building materials by demonstrating their value as nesting sites for raptors, and to encourage local communities to erect more nests in their districts.
ARTIFICIAL DEN PROJECT
At the initiative of Jamie Veronica (Big Cat Rescue) and Jim Sanderson (Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation), Steppe Wildlife built a total of 5 artificial dens by natural stone in July and August 2023. The purpose was the carnivores use these nests to move from one place to another and search for food areas where there are high densities of Brandt’s vole. We also set automat cameras around all artificial nests to monitor nest use. This project funded by Big Cat Rescue.
ENDANGERED MARMOT REINTRODUCTION PROJECT
In 2015 hunting management surveys mentioned they have not observed any marmot in the region. Furthermore, the questionnaire survey result among local people showed Mongolian marmot extinct in most of the village area. Steppe Wildlife started a marmot reintroduction project in Halzan village in 2018. Steppe Wildlife and local council of Khalzan soum were able to reintroduce 20 more individuals of Mongolian marmot in June, 2023. Now, we introduced over 100 individuals in 3 areas of Khalzan soum.
EDUCATIONAL WORK OF ARTIFICIAL NESTS AMONG LOCAL PEOPLE
Fourth educational event is organized by Steppe Wildlife among school children and local people in Halzan village of Sukhbaatar Province from the 10th to the 12th of March, 2023. We organized a drawing and essay competition named "How to protect our environment" among school children and volleyball and wrestling competitions among local people and children. The wildlife educational event reached school children and local people during the 2 days. This educational day is organized with profit with the photo album "Pallas's cat in Mongolia", which is published in 2021.
NEW BOOK
Second edition of the photo album include over photos to document the species, its habitat, its den sites, its hunting areas, and other animals that co-occurred with the Pallas's cat.
2023/05/05
EDUCATIONAL WORK OF ARTIFICIAL NESTS AMONG LOCAL PEOPLE
Fourth educational event is organized by Steppe Wildlife among school children and local people in Halzan village of Sukhbaatar Province from the 10th to the 12th of March, 2023. We organized a drawing and essay competition named "How to protect our environment" among school children and volleyball and wrestling competitions among local people and children. This educational event supported by Jim Sanderson who is director of Small Cat Conservation Foundation. The wildlife educational event reached school children and local people during the 3 days.
2022
ENDANGERED MARMOT REINTRODUCTION PROJECT
Steppe Wildlife RCC started a program to marmot reintroduction in an old marmot distributed area. Steppe Wildlife and Shared Earth Foundation were able to introduce 30 more marmots in Khalzan in end of June, 2022. Totally, we got 34 baby marmots since 2019. Now, we introduced over 70 individuals in 2 areas of Khalzan soum.
MONGOLIAN MARMOT INFLUENCE ON ISABELLINE WHEATEAR
In this paper, we show occupancy of wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina) in engineering patches created by Mongolian marmot (Marmota sibirica) and no engineering in different habitat types of the arid steppe ecosystem. Our results indicate that Isabelline wheatear distribution is strongly influenced by marmots as burrows presumably provide it with important habitat resources. The loss of marmots will probably have direct effects on the distribution of the breeding bird and the ecosystem processes they support.
2021
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY IN KHALZAN SOUM
However, there were two wildlife educational events among school children and local people in Halzan village of Sukhbaatar Province in 2018 and 2019, but we were not able to organize a third event in 2020 because of a pandemic and limited funds. Thanks to the Shared Earth Foundation, we could organize a third wildlife educational day in Halzan village in November, 2021. The wildlife educational event reached all school children of the soum.
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY IN KHALZAN SOUM
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Steppe Wildlife Research conservation center organized third reintroduction of Mongolian marmot in June of 2021. However we have limited fund, we purposed 20 marmots and we make a campaign among local people. Thanks for the local people, we raised 30 marmots fund. We introduced 50 individuals in 2 areas of Khalzan soum.
VERTEBRATE GUIDEBOOK OF SUKHBAATAR PROVINCE
This is the first comprehensive guide to the unique wildlife of the Sukhbaatar Province, encompassing the birds, mammals, and reptiles a visitor to these extraordinary steppe habitats. The innovative, simple-to-use format of the small-sized volume will help beginners and experts alike to identify with charismatic steppe fauna. Highlighting the differences between similar species, the guide focuses on the key identification features of each. Information on the status, habitat preferences, breeding seasons, and significant behavioral characteristics is provided for each species. 680 photographic images with illustrations depict 265 birds, 40 mammals, and 8 reptiles ever recorded on the Sukhbaatar Province.
CAMERA TRAP SURVEY ON MARMOT COLONIES
Marmots serve as ecosystem engineers that display multiple functions on the steppe environments they inhabit. To examine the role of marmots on vertebrate species, we set camera traps on and off marmot colony sites in the forest-steppe, steppe, and semi-desert zones of Mongolia. Species abundance and some diversity indices were significantly higher on colonies compared to off colony sites. Our research provides insights into how marmots create important habitats for associated fauna and demonstrates that this engineering species plays an irreplaceable role in this ecosystem. We hope that this and similar experimental approaches will allow us to better understand the biodiversity patterns in and around marmot burrows.
PALLAS'S CAT DIET SURVEY
Most studies on Pallas’ cats’ diets found that they strongly selected particular prey species, such as pika, and pika occurrence in Pallas’ cat diet was disproportionately high compared to availability in Central Mongolia. We have conducted research into Pallas’ cat ecology in Khalzan Soum since 2018. Brandt’s vole density started to increase in 2017, peaked in 2018-2019, and decreased in 2020. We collected feces of the cats every month from May, 2019 to May, 2020. We found a significant correlation between rodent abundance and occurrence in scats of Pallas’ cats during the kitten rearing season.
PLANTING TREE IN STEPPE ECOSYSTEM
Steppe Wildlife started a project to combat this process by planting trees in the area. With the our fund, we were able to plant 1700 trees in our camp fence May 2021.
Siberian elm trees are indigenous as to not disturb the sensitive ecosystem and local weather. Despite being adapted to this environment, these trees still need help to survive, especially during the hottest time of the year. The trees provide shelter from storm or hot weather, food, and resting locations for wildlife. The trees also help birds to move across the landscape to get to breeding sites, water sources, and to move to different habitats as the seasons change.
2019
STEPPE WILDLIFE PARTICIPATE AN INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT
The second international Small Wild Cat Conservation Summit is organized Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 7th to 11th of December. We introduced our Pallas's cat conservation activity to international researchers to 31 conservationists from 16 countries. We shared their research and conservation experiences, identified common threats and locally appropriate threat reduction strategies. The key threats to the small wild cat species were identified as: habitat loss and degradation, human-small wild cat conflict, hunting and poaching and vehicle collisions. However, only ten small wild cat species with known conservation initiatives were represented at the summit.
STEPPE WILDLIFE PARTICIPATE AN INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT
The second educational event was organized among Khalzan local people and school children from 13th to 14th of September. During the event we talked about the importance of conservation of Pallas's cat in this steppe ecosystem. We organized wrestling, volleyball competitions among adults and essay writing and drawing competitions among school children for the attraction of young people. Also some of the school children visited Steppe Wildlife camp to show research equipment and methods of some research work.
STEPPE WILDLIFE PARTICIPATE AN INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT
In 2015 hunting management surveys mentioned they have not observed any marmot in the region. Furthermore, the questionnaire survey result among local people showed Mongolian marmot extinct in most of the village area. Steppe Wildlife reintroduced first time marmots in 2018. We have set camera traps near the burrows of marmots since reintroduction. We noticed 6 and 4 baby marmots on record of camera traps in two marmot colonies. It was one indication of our introduction work success.
NEW PHOTO ALBUM OF SNOW LEOPARD
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Otgonbayar photographed this elusive and rare wild cat over the last 5 years, to introduce this wonderful and spectacular species to his readers. In this book he included its habitat, its hunting area, prey species, and other animals that co-occurred with the cat. He produced this annotated album for nature and wildlife lovers. This photographic book also includes some ecological information related to my observations of the biology, ecology and behavior, and comparisons with other research on this wonderful species of wild cat.
2018
PLANTING TREES
Steppe Wildlife started a project to combat this process by planting trees near Khalzan Village of Sukhbaatar Province. With the help of the Institute of Botany at The Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS), we were able to plant two thousand trees in October 2017 and planted another 500 trees in October 2018.
PALLAS'S CAT EDUCATIONAL DAY IN THE STEPPE
Steppe Wildlife organized the first educational day supported by Jim Sanderson, who is leader of Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, in Khalzan soum, Sukhbaatar on 12th of September, 2018. During the event, we introduced Pallas's cat and the importance of their conservation. In this wildlife educational day mostly school children and few local people participated and learnt conservation.
ENDANGERED MONGOLIAN MARMOT REINTRODUCTION WORK
Steppe Wildlife RCC started a program to reintroduce marmot reintroduction in an old marmot distributed area. We were able to reintroduce 20 individuals of Mongolian marmot in June 2018. First introduction work, children from soum, local governor people and local ranger actively participated.
NEW PHOTO ALBUM OF PALLAS'S CAT
