The past several weeks have had many of our scientists on their toes. Just a few weeks after Zara ventured into the “badlands,” it was Aztai’s turn. After taking off from his home range on what seemed like one of his usual forays, he spent two days around a hillock right in the middle of the badlands. Aztai’s movements were so limited the collar actually sent off a mortality warning which had us all very concerned. Aztai did finally move off to our great relief and a subsequent visit showed he’d killed a huge argali sheep. He must have eaten so much he literally “slept like the dead” in a nice safe spot. It was great to see he is fine and our worries were only temporary. In the meantime, Aztai has left this area and moved back towards the rather familiar Tost Mountains.
Khavar has remained in the southern half of his home range, clearly maintaining distance from Aztai. There have been at least two GPS clusters (where Khavar has been around the same location for a number of days); however it is difficult to say much about the significance of these sites unless our researchers visit them.
Zara, the only female we have managed to follow so far in this study, has spent most of her time in the past week around the southern badlands. She has been on at least three clusters, and we look forward to learning more about these sites and whether she had hunting success.
There have been no uplinks since the previous update on Shonkhor’s or Devekh’s collars. The other collars of Tsagaan and Saikhan have not uplinked any data for months now, and we hope to replace the collars some time soon in the coming autumn.