Research project captures and collars 36 saiga calves in Western Mongolia

B. Bayarbaatar has sent in his latest update on the progress of his saiga research in Mongolia.
The saiga (Saiga tatarica) is one of the world’s fastest animals and poaching has caused a huge population decline in Mongolia.

The project is the continuation of a multi-year research project that aims at understanding the survival and mortality of saiga calves in western Mongolia. This year, the field work has been focused on two major efforts:

1. Capturing and collaring more newborn saiga calves
2. Collecting data on their survival and movements

The capturing effort was completed within a two week period in June 2010 with the first calf captured on 13 June (2 days later than those captured in 2009). A total of 36 animals were successfully captured and collared (18 females and 18 males). Surprisingly, only 5.5% were a twin and all the remaining were singletons, which indicates very low twinning rate compared to the data collected over the last two years. This is possibly due to the drought and harsh winter that occurred in the area the previous year. The marked animals did not display hiding behavior and started to follow their mother after about 11 days of capture.
A total of 10 animals (4 males and 6 females) have died due to predation, disease and unknown causes. The majority of deaths were caused by raptor predations. The group size of marked animals ranged between 1 and 35 animals during the study period. Two or more marked calves were located in the same herd on four occasions.