Wildlife of the Mongolian Steppe
Dr. Rich Reading is the founding Director of Conservation Biology for the Denver Zoological Foundation. He also holds adjunct faculty positions at the University of Denver, University of Colorado - Denver, and Colorado State University, where he teaches and advises students. He is one of the lead scientists on the Earthwatch project Wildlife of the Mongolian Steppe.
The light filtering in from the top of the ger (or yurt) wakes me before the sun. On most days I would take a pre-breakfast walk down our valley to bird watch and look for argali sheep and ibex. But today I will join some early rising Earthwatch volunteers to check two grids of small mammal traps we baited last night. It's brisk (just about freezing) without a cloud in the sky, portending another day of rapid warming under an almost painfully blue sky.
We clamber into our sturdy Russian van and watch the sun rise as we drive to the first of our two grids. Talk centres around predictions of which of the several species of small mammals we will find in our little metal box traps - jerboas, gerbils, hamsters, dwarf hamsters, voles, mountain voles, lemmings, mice? It turns out we get a bumper crop of jerboas (two species of large, kangaroo rat-like rodents) with some dwarf hamsters and gerbils thrown in to keep things interesting.
Research tasks
Back for a hearty breakfast of rice porridge, yoghurt, and muesli, I check which volunteers signed up for which tasks - radio tracking some of our collared species (argali, ibex, a variety of small carnivores, hedgehogs, or kestrels) from a few of our studies, capturing and leg banding lesser kestrels, capturing vultures for radio tagging and monitoring their nests, or vegetation sampling. It's a tough choice and one I struggle with, as I love all these tasks and all these species. But the large ungulate, small carnivore, and hedgehog work has been largely taken over by the Mongolian staff I've helped train - just as I should be - and I'm no botanist. So, today I lead a Mongolian student and two volunteers in an effort to capture adult vultures for the first time.
It gets warm and then down-right hot in the full sun typical of the Gobi. Catching an adult cinereous vulture is no easy task. These huge 9 kg (20 pound) birds are very wary, but we have just the right bait and it doesn't even smell (too) bad. Instead, we place a bed of foot snares on the nests of vultures and use their two-month-old chicks as the lure to draw them in. We anchor the noose bed (a metal frame upon which we previously tied hundreds of foot snares out of fishing line) to a rock and tie the chick to a rock to prevent it from getting hurt. Then we pull away, sit back, and wait. And wait...and wait.
Recording data
Actually, the adults usually return quickly, but they know something is up and often avoid getting tangled. Coming back a second time can take hours. But eventually we get our bird. Rushing up, we quickly hood the bird to calm her. We remove the foot snare, untie the typically calm nestling, and remove the bed of snares. After the difficult process of putting on the backpack, we measure, wing tag, leg band, and weigh the animal. It takes several people to perform these tasks and record the data as these birds are strong with > 3 m (10 ft) wingspans and razor sharp bills. We pull the hood, release the bird, and after a few running steps with beating wings, she takes flight. We all cheer.
Back at camp we take solar showers before our cook demands our presence at her sumptuous feast (when Tsomoo tells you to eat, you eat!). We trade stories with our Mongolian colleagues and other volunteers about the day, before I put in a few hours of solar-powered computer work. As I collapse onto my sleeping pad I'm smiling. I'm working with wildlife in one of the world's last great wildernesses, we have a great team of hard-working volunteers and Mongolian students, we're achieving our goals, and I'm sleeping beneath more stars than most people will ever see. I can hardly wait for tomorrow's adventure to begin.