The WildArt Mongolia Expedition 2013

Mongolia Monday- WildArt Mongolia Expedition Destinations: Altai Mountains and Sharga

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Mongolia country map with destination area
Expedition destinations by species

I leave for Mongolia a week from tomorrow! 

I posted about one of the three WildArt Mongolia Expedition destinations here. Today I’m going to cover the other two- the Altai Mountains and Sharga. The difficulty is that I have never been to any of them, so I don’t have any images to share. For Takhiin Tal, I used a photo from Khomiin Tal, the newest takhi release site, which is to the north. So I’ll post a couple of my own images that show similar terrain, based on what I’ve seen for both on Google Images.

The Mongolian Altai Mountains in Mongolia are the extension of a range that extends east from Kazakhstan. I saw the Gobi Altai Mountains during my 2010 two-week camping trip when we went to Orog Nuur, a remote lake. Farther west they are much higher and more rugged. The Expedition is going in September to be there between the summer heat of the Gobi and snow beginning in the mountains. We will go to the Altai Mountains first, in early September, but snow is still a possibility, so I’ll have a down bag and thermals, just in case.

Gobi Altai mountains at sunrise, Orog Nuur, July 2010

The reason we’re going is to see snow leopard habitat. These elusive cats are essentially impossible to spot. Researchers who have trapped and collared them have walked away and looked back to where they know they left the cat and have been utterly unable to see it. But we’ll keep an eye out anyway.

Sharga was an area of Mongolia that I had not heard of until I added saiga antelope to the list of the Expedition’s featured species. They are critically endangered. Less than twenty years ago there were over a million. The population crashed to under 50,000 in ten years, the most extreme drop ever seen in a large mammal species. Poaching and lax law enforcement after the fall of the communist government in the 1990s were the cause. Intense conservation efforts are under way to save them and build up the population, something we plan to learn more about.

Steppe grasslands, July 2011, traveling north from Ikh Nartiin Chuluu to Gun-Galuut

Sharga has some of the last stretches of the vast steppe grasslands that once extended from almost the Pacific west into Hungary. It is an area also known for producing what are considered by many to be the best horses, called Sharga Azarga,  in a country that seriously knows horses.

Arrangements are being made for a local reserve ranger to accompany us to help spot the saiga since they apparently now run at the slightest sight of humans and understandably so.

One of the missions of the WildArt Mongolia Expedition is, by traveling to these remote, beautiful places, to use the art that we will create to draw attention to them and the wildlife that lives there.

Mongolia Monday- Expedition Destination: Takhin Tal

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Expedition destinations by species

Takhiin Tal is part of the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area. It is to the west of Great Gobi A, which is larger and even more remote from people and towns.

It is also part of the Dzungarian Gobi, where the last takhi/Przewalski’s horse was seen in the wild in 1969, a lone stallion at a waterhole. And it is one of the three destinations that the WildArt Mongolia Expedition will be exploring.

Great Gobi B encompasses 9000 sq. kilometers, almost 3500 sq. miles. As has been true for centuries, local herders, around 100 families with about 60,000 head of livestock, use the area to graze their animals, mostly in the winter and during their spring and fall migrations.

Khomiin Tal takhi, September 2006;  These horses were photographed at the third release site, which is some distance to the north.

Takiin Tal was also the first of the three takhi release sites in Mongolia. The first horses arrived from Germany in 1992 through the efforts of Christian Oswald, a German businessman, and the Mongolian government. The organization he founded, ITG or the International Takhi Group, is involved there to this day, working to conserve and increase the population of the world’s only surviving species of true wild horse.

Besides takhi, the Expedition also hopes to see another endangered equid, the khulan/Mongolian wild ass, along with a variety of birds and smaller mammals.