Snow Leopard Vs. Camel?

It’s getting cold, right now it is about minus 20 degrees C, and I am sitting in a tent. Yet again I wonder why on Earth I work with snow leopards and not sea turtles. ‘Collaring’ or tagging sea turtles must be great. One can sit on the beach with a Pina Colada and simply wait for the turtles to come up and lay eggs. As they pass by, you put down the Pina Colada, grab a bottle of glue and a transmitter, attach it to the shell and go back to the Pina Colada. But no, I had to chose snow leopards. Haven’t even smelled a whiff of Pina Coladas, or beaches for that matter, since I came to the Gobi. We do have some sand and it is hot in the summer but the two vital parts are missing (three if you include the beach chair).

Speaking of heat we have found a new measuring tool for when to put in more firewood/coal/dung in the stove: a cat-o-meter. It works splendid. If there is enough firewood in the stove Friday will sleep about 50 cm from it (under the table), as the fire dies the cat moves closer to the stove. Just before the fire goes out she squeezes herself under the stove, very good notification that it is time to put in more firewood. The cat comes out in a hurry when we put in more wood, reckon it can actually get too hot even for a cat.

Workwise we are doing clusters most of the days (i.e. checking on sites where there seems to be a ‘cluster’ of GPS locations for a snow leopard). The big news is that we have found a camel that Aztai killed. It was a young camel but from the tracks in the dirt it still looked as if he had a tough time bringing it down. To my knowledge, that is the first camel found to be killed by a snow leopard. Aztai seemed to be pretty proud of himself because he had made 15-20 scrapes at the kill site. Almost as if to say ‘look what I just did’.

It’s tough to drive the dirt bikes for hours and hours in this cold. I am bundled up in my Mongolian del (robe), two caps, a facemask, ski goggles, down jacket etc. But the wind still chills all the way into the bones. It’s also hard to control the bike with all the clothes, especially once you’ve lost feeling in the hands. Yesterday I drove over a bump too fast and made a nice jump with the bike. I managed to hold on to the handle but apart from that had no contact with the bike. Perhaps I could start doing dirt bike shows in case I get tired of research…

Oh well, enough whining about the cold. Will get used to it in a couple of days.

A Wild Snow Leopard is Growing Up

As we came back to camp after a long day of searching snow leopard hunting sites (places where we know snow leopards have been eating) we had an alarm on our surveillance system. We quickly grabbed all gear and went to the snare, in it was a big male ibex. He was too big for us to easily release so I gave him a sedative. He wasn’t fully immobilized but we got him out and looked after him until he could leave the site. On our way back to camp we saw snow leopard pugmarks in our ATV tracks. The leopard had walked there after we had left for the ibex, meaning at most an hour ago. The cat was headed straight for our camp! I got really happy when it turned 300 meters from camp, partly because Friday (the camp kitty) was out and I don’t want her to become a leopard snack.

Then we had a new alarm on the system and while I cleaned our gear Elin went up the mountain to check which snare that had been triggered. It was the one that the leopard was walking towards! As we came there an old friend was waiting for us – Shonkhor (means Falcon in Mongolian, a pair of Sakhar falcons nested at the site where we collared him the first time. Falcons are also a symbol of youth in Mongolia). He was first collared in May 2009, at that time he weighed 34 kg and I estimated him to be two years old. Since then he has gained some size and now weighs 39 kg. Most likely he is 3.5 years old. Shonkhor had an old collar that had malfunctioned, great to have that changed out for a new one.

I like Shonkhor, he has a lot of personality. First time I saw him he rolled over on his back with all four paws in the air. I puzzled my brain, trying to recall if anyone had ever mentioned what to do in this type of situation.

When we collared him this time Shonkhor was lying down with his head on his front paws. He didn’t seem too troubled about the situation, a lot of the vegetation around him was untouched so he can’t have been moving around much. He barred his teeth but except for that stayed still. I left the site and when we came back a couple of minutes later he was sleeping with his head resting on the front paws.

Shonkhor was a little skinny but seemed to be in good condition, his head as grown a lot wider since last time we met and now he gives the impression of a big powerful male. Though, he doesn’t have any scars in his face so perhaps he isn’t fully grown and hasn’t yet engaged in fighting with rivals.

Company Arrives at Base Camp, Shonkhor Needs a New Collar

Days in field: 67
weight loss: 5.5 kg
Beard length: 1.7 cm

Signs of madness: Have stopped talking to myself since I got company. Not evident at the moment, unless one counts carrying a small car battery up and down a mountain every fifth day.

Elin Gronberg arrived in camp two weeks ago. She is a Swedish student who will help us search kill sites and hopefully do some observations of the cats when they are at the kills. We have had some busy days since she arrived, I wanted to search all the old kill sites before we moved our camp. We almost made it, and we found 11 new carcasses. The new camp is located in the Northwest corner of the study area, we moved here a week ago. The surveillance system is up and running, and now we are waiting for something to happen.

The trap cameras that were deployed here this summer got pictures of some new cats, and one old: Shonkhor. His collar has stopped working and needs to be replaced. We have about 40 days to find all cats in the area, a little tight, but it might work. Well, as long as we get Shonkhor it will be OK.

“James Bond” is a Female: The Elusive New Cat Joins The Study

At 03:19 (on October 15, 2010) our trap surveillance system alarm went off. This system, with its siren, makes me feel a little like a fire-fighter. In true “fire-fighter manner,” I jumped into my clothes, packed the gear on the ATV and drove off. What I found was a pretty big female.

The collaring went smooth. After about an hour the cat’s temperature had dropped a bit so I applied two hot water bottles and wrapped her up in the wind bag. That helped, and she soon got warm again.

I had my hopes that she was the mother of Zaraa (the little female we caught in May), and Tom McCarthy (SLT Science and Conservation Director) just confirmed that they are traveling together. That means two things:

First – we can study dispersal of sub-adult snow leopards for the first time ever.

Second – I just caught James Bond. I saw from the collar locations that Zaraa had been in the area when the two leopards had avoided four of my snares, so I take it that her mom is ‘James Bond – snare dodging cat’. I had improved the snares since then, shifting the triggers a little on some, and I also put up some colored feathers. Mrs. Bond was not prepared for that and could not resist checking the feathers out.