The One Where I Geek Out Over Horses

We got up this morning and went out of to search for wolves.  The park ranger who took us said he thinks there are two packs of 5 or 6 wolves each.  We searched multiple places, but we failed.  No wolves were seen on this trip.  We did see another herd of Takhi, though.  This time, Sunny, the biologist who specializes in the Takhi (or Przewalski Horse) was with us, so we got lots of questions answered.

When I was a teenager, I was on the 4-H Horse Club's horse bowl team.  That's a team that competes in competitions with other clubs on horse-related trivia.  One of the things we learned on that team is that the Przewalski Horse was the bridge between the "hippus" animals and the "equus" animals we now know as horses.  This is not true.  It very well may be what science thought at the time, but genome mapping and other things were not known waaay back then.  As science learns more, things we thought sometimes change, too.  I'm getting ready to geek out on you, so consider yourself warned!  We now know that both the modern horse and Przewalski's horse evolved from early equus.  However, Przewalski's horse (known as Takhi in Mongolian) is the only remaining truly wild horse in the world, making it its own species in the equus genus - just like the zebra is its own equus species.  Once the horse was domesticated, breeding was controlled, which kept its chromosomal makeup stable with 66 chromosomes.  This is the case whether this domesticated horse has ever been tamed or not, so it includes those wild ponies on Chincoteaque Island and the wild mustangs in the western US.  It also includes all the untamed livestock horses in Mongolia and other countries where horse meat is eaten.  This is because those untamed horses have descended from horses that were previously domesticated so that the chromosomal makeup has been stable at 66 without the massive amount of years required for a Robertsonian translocation

The Takhi, on the other hand, continued evolving naturally and eventually underwent a common Robertsonian translocation (a fusing of some chromosomes) so that it now only has 64 chromosomes, even though the 14 Takhi that remained in the world were in zoos.  This is why the Taklhi looks more similar to the cave drawings of horses than the domestic horse does.

Cave painting in Lascaux Cave in Dordogne, France (dated Paleolithic) (Credit World History Encyclopedia)

The last confirmed sighting of a Takhi in the wild prior to reintroduction was in 1969.  At that time, there were 14 individuals in various zoos around the world.  To prevent extinction, some of those zoos started an intensive breeding program.  Beginning in the 1990s, they began reintroducing the Przewalski horse to various places in the wild, including in three locations in Mongolia.  One of those locations is Khoman Tal National Park in Mongolia.  In 2003, they fenced in 14,000 hectares of the Khomen Tal steppe to protect it from overgrazing and to ensure there was water from the Zavkhan River.  Then 22 zoo-born horses were transported from France.  Because of the success of this reintroduction, Khoman Tal National Park was recognized in 2020, and expanded to 411,403 hectares, with the original 14,000 hectares remaining fenced.  The expansion of the protected area by designation as a national park has also helped the populations of the Saiga antelope, the Mongolian gazelle, and other animals of the western steppe.  Estimates are that for the three locations with the Takhi reintroduction in Mongolia, there are approximately 900 Takhi in the country, with approximately 150 of them in Khoman Tal National Park.

Anyway, we saw lots of Takhi and we had Sunny, the Takhi biologist, with us!  (Sunny's name in Mongolian means sunny, so that's the name she goes by in English.)  She explained to us that the Takhi are all the same color.  The color variations we were seeing during our visit was the result of them being in various stages of shedding their winter coats.  She also told us that in 2014, anthrax invaded the park.  They took steps to control the spread, by testing, quarantine, and treatment.  When a horse passed, they buried it and fenced the area around it for further quarantine.  With all of these steps, they were able to limit the loss to only five horses, which I think is amazing!  We also asked about potential hybridization.  Though the Takhi and domestic horses can breed and have viable offspring, Sunny said their experience has been that the offspring have not survived the few times it has happened in their herds.  

Following breakfast, we went searching for owls.  There's only one place in the park to find owls, so we didn't have to search a whole lot.  We drove down to the river and saw some whooper swans chilling out in the cold water.  They flew away before I could get a decent shot.  I usually say a bad shot is better than no shot, but these were even too bad to qualify for that.  We found nests for

the eagle owl (who didn't move)

and the bearded vulture (who gave me a couple of poses)

We came back to the lodge for lunch and some information about the park and the reintroduction program, including the challenges the park is facing with reintroduction, including plans to remove the fence and let the Takhi roam throughout and the other animals in the park graze in what is currently the protected area.  Then we went out for more Takhi.  I'll never get my fill of these lovely and unique horses.  I've been wanting to see them since the late 1970s, when I learned about them, and now that I have, I can't seem to get my fill.  I won't bore you with aaaallllll of the shots I took while we were at the park.  But I will give you a few of the more unique ones.  They have a stallion in the park who has lost his herd and is cast out.  For some reason, he has not decided to join a bachelor herd and wanders alone.  Maybe the bachelor herd won't accept him because he has become disfigured.  His name is NoTail because he has lost his tail, potentially in the fight when he lost his herd.  Being alone makes him vulnerable to wolf or other predator attacks, but he has survived thus far.

The Takhi are also matriarchal even though a herd only has one stallion.  It is the lead mare who tells everybody what to do.  The male is only there for mating.  In this herd, The matriarch was putting many of the others in their places.  I missed the best one, but I did catch a smaller discipline.  I'm not sure what the other mare was doing wrong, but she was having none of it!

We also saw a large herd of Mongolian gazelle.  They're just adorable little critters!

After a very productive day, we headed back to the lodge, getting ready to move again in the morning for more adventures!  Again, Soaring Expeditions knocked it out of the park, delivering more than I was hoping for!

Horses Coming!!

Today we left the snow leopard camp, which according to my phone was somewhere close to Santmargaz, Zavkhan, Mongolia, if anybody's really that interested.  All I could tell you before looking it up was that it was in the Margaz Mountains in the middle of nowhere.  Looking at my ger, it looked so lonely with everything packed up and not exploded all over the place.  Same thing in the meal ger.  All of you who know me would not be surprised to know I took up  more than my fair share of space around the charger areas.  But I was more than happy to let anybody use my cords or chargers if I wasn't using them.  I had bought cheap hand warmers before leaving in case the Chinese border patrol decided they were batteries.  I didn't want to risk losing my nice penguin hand warmers the kids got me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  Bina said I might need them for the yak herders, so I gave him one pair (along with their bag and charging cord) and showed him how they worked and told him I'd send the other pair back with Ariuna before I left town.  I would much rather they be with the guys in camp than a border guard confiscate them.  My things that had been living in our car had already been transferred to the car we would be taking for the next part of the trip, so after breakfast, all that was left was the goodbyes.  All the trackers came out to see us, and we were changing drivers, too.  I tried to give the traditional greeting that I had seen many of them do with each other.  It ended up being fist bumps, and they all seemed to be really excited to fist bump me before we left.  I had grown to lean on every one of them and I trusted them very much.  It was a pretty tearful goodbye.  This has been an amazing trip so far.

Our drive was most of the day.  We drove by the sand dunes.  They are fed from the western part of the mountain range.  They run about 200 km (124 miles) long and about 10-20 km (6-12 miles) wide.  The highest dune is about 200 m (650 ft) high.

Then we stopped by the salt lake.

And we drove through the dunes!  This was bouncy and fun.

Before long, we came upon a little town.  I think the town (not the snow leopard camp) is actually called Santmargaz.  It was across the river.  During the winter, it's much closer to the camp.  Once the spring warm-up starts, you have to go all the way to the bridge to get to town.  We could still see ice on it, but there were spots that were melting pretty well and the running water was visible.  Not really safe for driving over at this point.

The bridge was a little old and worn in many spots, but we made it across.

We drove through town.  

And stopped at this little store called the Sample Market.  I resumed my attempts to remember cyrillics from almost learning them many, many years ago when I worked with Russian linguists in Germany.  Mongolia uses a modified cyrillic alphabet.  I didn't do too poorly, if I do say so myself.  Of course, I downloaded a cheat sheet for the letters that weren't in the Russian alphabet or the ones I had forgotten.

She had a huge assortment of things for such a small building.  Various alcohols, candies, vegetables, pelts, pantry staples, and other things.  We tried some milk vodka that the shopkeeper made herself and got some snacks.  I got some Mongolian candy to take home.

The carrots here are even bigger than they were in Ecuador!!

After leaving the market and getting gas, we went to another part of the river (over a much newer bridge) and had lunch.  You can see the ice still there, but also the running water in spots.

Then we entered Khoman Tal National Park.  After driving a while, we saw some saiga antelope running off in the distance.  These guys are fast!  This was the best shot I got.  They moved waaay too fast for me to follow them with the camer.  One minute they were there, and the next they were gone!

We also got a good look at the Mongolian ground jay.  This one sat still long enough and was close enough for a really good shot!

Soon after, we entered a fenced area, which is where the Przewalski horse (Takhi, in Mongolian) is kept so that it is more easily managed.  Eventually, they will remove the fencing, but not just yet.  The Takhi in the wild went extinct in the past, but thanks to controlled breeding programs in a few zoos around the world, they have been reintroduced to a few places, and Khoman Tal National Park in Mongolia is one of those.  The guys at this camp are doing a great job taking care of these wild horses and keeping their numbers high and growing, managing ground cover and vegetation for them to eat.  We got there and had our first showers since going to the snow leopard camp (Oh was it glorious!), and settled into our ger.  It was nice to have overnight electricity, too, so I plugged in Darth Vader (my CPAP) and was settled in early for an all-night sleep with no waking up unable to breathe!  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and we heard someone yell, "Horses coming!"  So we just had to throw our boots and coats on and head out to see them!

This was a fairly large herd, and the stallion's name was Laniekea.  There are about 15 herds in the park, ranging for 4-14 members.  I had both cameras and was so tired that I was having trouble even holding the little Lumix, so lots of my pictures were blurry, even when the horses were standing still.  But when the ranger came driving up and scared them off, I was able to get them running away with my phone.

Then we went back to our ger and had nice dreams of Takhi after nice showers and me getting to breathe all night!

Final Day at the Snow Leopard Camp

On our last day at the snow leopard camp, we didn't see much in the morning.  At lunch, we talked about my potential next trip, when I might want to see the eagle hunters in action, the girl archers, and the reindeer hunters.  That trip should most likely be in September or October.  If I want to ride the reindeer, I would still need to lose about 25 more lbs.  Bina also said they ride horses up to the reindeer that time of year, and it is a pretty grueling two-day ride in slippery, muddy, mountainous terrain.  So, I might also want to take some refreshing riding lessons to get my riding muscles back in shape.

After lunch, we headed back out.  While we were driving in a little valley, I spotted an Ibex!  Me!  I spotted it!  And we stopped to take some pictures.

We drove on down to the end of the valley, where our driver started spotting like normal while Bina walked up to join us.  As we went back down the valley, there were many other animals.  My strength is getting better.  Pretty much all of these are taking with the big camera (The Baby) with no support.

My notes say upland buzzard.  I'm pretty proud of having the camera this steady!  Other than cropping, there wasn't much work needed on it.

More ibex.  There was a whole herd.

Elk

Maybe red deer

Bina found wolf tracks, and when we came back through, we stopped for them.  I took some pictures, but between the shadows from people and vehicles, I couldn't pull enough shadows of the print to make it clear what was in the shots.  My journal has this happening after lunch, but I keep thinking this was in the morning.  This is why I journal while traveling.  Days just melt into each other.  Anyway, at some point, the trackers found a snow leopard!  On our last day, we were going to get another snow leopard!  We saw cats on 5 out of the 7 days we were in camp!  These guys with Soaring Expeditions are amazing!  Our first looks were waaay far out.  I looked through the scope to get landmarks for where he was, and by the time I got over to the rocks where I wanted to take my shots, he had gone back into his cave.  So, I got a few shots of the landscape and some distant Mongolian gazelle with a horse in the background.

And Yumchin took a picture of me in my shooting position with my phone.  You can see how heavy my big camera (The Baby) is!  Also, look at that lovely headgear Chrissy knitted for me!  The best headgear I've had!

After a while, we moved closer and continued to wait for him to come out.  He crept out very slowly and timidly.  After we spent some time with him, the guys determined that this was a new male that they hadn't seen before, either in person or on the camera traps.  He was a beauty, though, and once he got out, he just laid down and sunned himself on the ledge.  He did keep his beautiful, blue-grey eyes on us, though.

He did do some rolls to scratch and took a couple of naps once he decided we weren't a threat.

What a way to end the camp portion of the trip!  In total, we saw 6 unique snow leopards (Scarface, Alungoo, the cubs - that we didn't get pix of, and this guy), 5 unique Pallas cats, and many prey animals.  Every mammal that I had on my wish list was seen (except Przewalski's horse, which is a guarantee for later), was seen with several more.  We got nice, safe, close looks at them, with most of the animals being visible to the naked eye.  Top it all off with the fact that I didn't have to contend with the super high altitude in India or significant physical requirements in other locations.  If you're interested in seeing snow leopards in the wild, I highly recommend going with these guys at Soaring Expeditions.  I'm looking forward to how the rest of the trip goes!

Pica, history, and Clyde

We woke up this morning to another person coming to see the snow leopards.  This one is from Japan.  This is a busy camp, and each trip is curated specifically for the person taking it.  When something is found, we all end up together, but while searching, each group is with their own guide.

On our first stop, we found the Pallas' pica.  Other than the Przewalski horse, which isn't in this area of the country, that covers every animal I had on my list and then some!  The pica is not a rodent.  Instead it is more closely related to rabbits and hares.  Just look at those cute little ears!  And it's not carrying any vegetation in its mouth to put in its burrow to save for eating during the winter!  Of course, this is spring, so Bina reminded me it's not the right time of year for that.

We saw a pair of golden eagles, but no cats.

On the way back to camp for lunch, we stopped by to see a herder family.  Unlike how I had thought of nomadic peoples, the herders in this area rotate to different pastures in the general area.  They don't cover hundreds of miles with each move, but remain on the steppe, just in different parts of it (which is still pretty vast).  When they leave their current spot, they will leave any fixed structures there and come back to it when the season comes around for them to return to this section.  After they move the herds, many of them come back to clean up.  They will use the chips for burning, especially starting fires, and other things.  Shelters and pens for the animals will remain.  They taken their ger and other items for daily living with them, including the satellite TV dish and solar electricity panels for those who have them. 

Education is compulsory in Mongolia, and the children of the herders have dormitories they can live in during the four terms of school, coming home for breaks, including summer (June-September).  A few of the families are able to have a home in the community, so the kids can stay with one parent during the school year and only one parent goes out with the herds.  Others pool their resources, sending a rotating herder out to care for multiple herds while the others get to be with their spouses and children in town, rotating herders so one doesn't spend an excessive period of time away from their family.  They are a very resourceful group of people.

When couples marry, the ceremony lasts a few days, beginning with the ritual arrival of the bride to the ger and exchanging of vows.  Each family contributes to the furnishings, ensuring that the couple doesn't start out with nothing.  There are currently no dowries, but historically, dowries were common.  Guests stay and remain all day, not just a couple of hours for the ceremony and a short reception.  Those who were unable to attend the ceremony will come to visit on the second day, again an all day affair.  The third day is reserved for the couple to visit both sets of parents.  In this picture, you can see where they are melting some of the last snow for water before they pack up the ger and leave for the next pasture.  Most of the livestock were gone already.

After lunch, the community meeting was scheduled, so my companion and I went camel riding.  

On the way to the camels, we stopped by a bronze-age burial site.  The tall stones indicate the importance of the person buried there.  Some of them have broken over time, but you can tell which ones have done that.  They also have faces carved into the stones in front of the grave.  The angrier the face, the fiercer the warrior, which usually also made them more important, so taller stones.

We headed on to the camels.  This was not a tourist riding type of thing.  This was a herder who rides some of his camels like you ride horses.  He just happened to be friends with one of our trackers.  They don't name their camels, so I called mine Clyde (like from the Ray Stevens song), and we had a great time.  They only use one rope on the camel, and they neck reign and use leg signals.  Clyde bent right around my leg when I asked him to.  You just have to be careful to keep your hands high because low hands are the cue for them to lay down so you can dismount.  Though it's been a very long time again, from what I remember, the bactrim camel here is a much smoother ride than the dromedary camel I rode in Saudi Arabia.  The passage of time could have impacted my memory, though.

The humps were a little down because of a lack of nutrition during the winter.

Look at those HUGE feet!

Clyde seemed to be a happy boy who didn't seem to mind the thing through his nose.

After riding, we went back to the camp for dinner.  Part of the dinner conversation was a discussion about the pica, and I learned that Pikachu, the Pokemon, was likely named after the pica, so those who pronounce it with a long I are probably wrong.  The pronunciation of pica has troubled me for several years, ever since I heard the first person pronouncing it with a long I.  It was a nice discussion of Pokemon over dinner, and I ended up connecting our friend from Hong Kong with Chrissy in one of the Pokemon virtual card sites.  All in all, another great day.