Exciting Field Updates! Three New Cats in Tracking Study

In early May, Snow Leopard Trust researchers affixed GPS collars to three snow leopards in the Tost mountains of South Gobi. Our team of international and Mongolian conservationists have safely collared more individual snow leopards than any other study ever undertaken. The knowledge gathered is crucial to understanding their ecology and helps inform where and how conservation programs are implemented to protect them.

On this field trip, our team collared three adult cats: two females and a male. This brings the total number of individual snow leopards tracked via GPS collar to 40. None of the three newcomers to the study are the territorial cats in the area. We believe they were just passing through, perhaps scouting for vacant areas.

One of the females, Altai, which means gold in Mongolian (F17 – pictured at top of post), traveled all the way west. We think she resides in what used to be Agnes’ and Dagina’s range. The other female, Mandal, which means rise/sunrise (F18), appears to reside in the area around East Valley where Uus Khaigh (M20) lived and Chingis (M14) still resides. The male, Salkhi, which means wind (M23), has perhaps taken over Uus Khaigh’s (M20) territory, but it is too early to tell. He had some wounds that probably stemmed from territorial fights with other males.

We don’t know too much about these new snow leopards yet. Camera trap images and collar data will provide a more detailed picture of their lives over the coming months.

Unfortunately, two males we had collared earlier died in late March. Uus Khaigh (M20) appeared to have been killed in a territorial fight with another male. Because of his wounds, we wonder if perhaps M23 may have been involved in the fight. M20 was around eight years old and had held his territory for four years. Typically, males appear to be able to defend their territories until they are about ten years old, so M20 losing his territory (and life) was at a slightly younger age than what we have previously seen.

M22 died at around the same time of unknown causes. He had settled in a hilly area between the crater and Toson Bumba. The area does not contain any prime snow leopard habitat and we have never seen a snow leopard residing there, although many cats have passed through. We think he was four to five years old, which means he should have been big and experienced enough to establish a territory. Perhaps there were no vacant territories available and he resided in this area while waiting for an opportunity to establish one. A shortage of available space could also explain why M20 lost his territory and life at a rather young age, as less space should cause more intense fights.

Ibex updates

Collaring and tracking ibex, a key prey species for snow leopards, is a vital part of our research to understand the intricate dynamics between predators and their prey, specifically how their movements and spatial patterns influence one another. But collaring a prey animal like an ibex in a humane, ethically appropriate way is easier said than done in harsh wind-swept mountain terrain. Over the years, our team has developed a number of methods, some of which have been successful while others are still under development. 

Senior Scientist Dr. Örjan Johannson recently laid out the whole list of plans and explained the latest strategy below. (For those keeping count, we’re on Plan G.) Our research team will return to Tost in the fall to see if Plan G works.

Plan A: Trap baited with salt licks (Turns out that nearly all mountain ungulates love salt except for ibex in Gobi!)

Plan B: Trap baited with apples and carrots (Pikas took  them – these small mammals are closely related to rabbits – some might say they’re adorable unless you’re a scientist trying to collar ibex!)

Plan C: Trap baited with water (this would have worked, but refilling regularly isn’t easy in a desert!)

Plan D: Trap was moved and placed on top of a small water hole/spring (the trap was then washed away and buried 150 m downstream in the heaviest rainfall of the last 40 years!)

Plan E: Sit and wait for ibex at a water hole (this worked, but the wind caught the darts and 90% bounced off before injecting the drugs).

Plan F: An ibex feeder dispatched a small amount of goat feed pellets every day (Turns out that ibex don’t like the pellets or anything else we put in the feeder. But pikas do!)

Plan G: CURRENT PLAN – Two artificial water holes. 

Says Örjan, “We have moved our ibex trap to a small well that our biologist Buren uses mainly to water his horses. It’s located near a small ravine and ibex commonly come and drink together with the horses, seemingly unbothered by the person drawing up water from the well. We built a small water hole in cement inside the trap and the plan is to always have water in there, teaching the ibex to go there to drink.

We also built a slightly larger water hole in the central part of Tost and placed a 1000 liter water tank close to it, fitted with a small solar-powered pump. This should ensure that the water hole is always full. Once animals come and drink, we can increase the amount of water that is pumped up. It should hopefully not take too long before the ibex learn that there is a new water source there. We left Tost feeling, ‘This time, we’ve thought of everything!’ Though given the history of our ibex capture attempts, we might come back with Plan F in 2025…”

Örjan testing the drop net

Örjan also sent the photo below and added this:
“While we are puzzled and slightly annoyed that it could be this difficult to capture ibex, we admit that they are fascinating creatures. They are commonly very skittish, but now and then, they seem completely unbothered by our presence. We often have ibex sleeping just outside our camp in the mornings. On this trip, we counted around 21 ibex, some of them sound asleep despite us being outside making noise just 70-80 m from them. The snow leopards hunt mainly from dusk to dawn and we wonder if the ibex use our camp as protection from the cats. It seems as if they seek us out and stay closer to us at night than you would have expected.”

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This long-term ecological study is in collaboration with Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation in Mongolia and Snow Leopard Trust, with special thanks to the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, the Government of Mongolia, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences for their support.

We would also like to acknowledge:
National Geographic Society, Acton Family Giving, Bioparc Zoo de Doue la Fontaine, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Idaho Falls Zoo at Tautphaus Park, John Ball Zoo, Kolmarden Zoo, Korkeasaari Zoo, Nordens Ark, Parco Zoo Punta Verde, Play for Nature, Tierpark Berlin, The Big Cat Sanctuary/Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Tulsa Zoo, Whitley Fund for Nature, Zoo Basel, Zoo Dresden, Zoo New England and the many incredible partners who have supported programs like our Long-term Ecological Study and research in Mongolia since it began in 2008. We could not do this work without you.

Photo credits: Snow Leopard Trust and SLCF-Mongolia. Photo of F17 at top of post by Chris Beard and Snow Leopard Trust Explorer in Residence, Dan O’Neill.