On the (earth) road again. Taken through the windshield of the van.
We were sorry to have to leave Takhiin Tal so soon, but ahead of us, with luck, would be sightings of the world’s most endangered antelope, the saiga. At one time there were millions. Poaching reduced their numbers in Mongolia to a low of 760 at one point. Biologists had calculated that below 600 the species would no longer viable. A turnaround came when the World Wildlife Federation helped set up the Saiga Ranger Network, based in Darvi Soum. That was our next stop, where we hoped to be able find and speak with the Network coordinator Batsaikhan Baljiinnyam. But we had quite a drive ahead of us…
Local herderGer in a protected spot. One of the Mongols told us that gers serve as a compass in the countryside. Since they always face south, once you spot one you know which way is which.Oncoming traffic for the day. One motorbike.Unexpected trees.Gers in a really lovely spot that I’d love to go back to and have time to paint.The road and the stream became one for quite a distance.The soum center of Bugat. Typical size and setting.Leaving Bugat I suddenly saw a lammergeier/bearded vulture right by the road!He took off and I got some nice aerial shots.Where better to stop for lunch than near a herd of camels?We went up into another rugged pass. I wasn’t sure exactly where we were, but knew that the driver of our van was heading towards the Sharga area, as I had requested, since that was where we had a chance to see the antelope.We came out of the pass onto this upland area and within a few minutes, oh my gosh, there was a male saiga antelope!We started to see them almost everywhere it seemed, including this female.We spotted a number of vultures circling and it turned out to be two species, a smaller griffon vulture and the much larger eurasian black/cinereous vulture.That is a patch of snow on that mountain. In early September. Camels and earth roads, a combination I never, ever get tired of.By the time we got to the soum center of Darvi, we calculated that we had seen at least twenty saiga, far, far more than my wildest dreams. And did they put on a show. I’ve seen a lot of wild hoofed animals, but never a species that runs like these do.We drove into Darvi to get petrol and water. Notice the solar panel on the left.The second van didn’t show up where expected at the petrol station, so we went looking for them and found that they’d been stopped by a flat tire. Hundreds of miles on earth roads through the deep Gobi and we get a flat in town. Sendag, the driver of that van, took care of it that evening, to my surprise. He found someone at 8:00 at night who repaired the tire for about $8.We had seen the lake Ikhes Nuur when we drove into town and decided to see if it would be a good place to camp. It was.Gers with a view of the lake.Our camp.
Thus ended quite a day. Our mission on the morrow was to find Batsaikhan and learn about saiga conservation.
Mongolia country map with destination areaExpedition 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.
Susan Fox, American Artist 