Backrgound to First Mongolian Field
Trip
As a passionate conservationist ( I used to spend my
university and law school holidays safariing in East Africa) it was
a dream come true to spend time as a guest of the
Snow Leopard Trust at their research camp in the Tost
valley of the South Gobi desert. When I had learnt about the
plight, and how endangered the snow leoapard was in 2005, little
did I know that five years on I would be privileged enough to spend
time with the scientists in the field and meet the wonderful herder
families who share the snow leopard's habitat and participate in
the community based conservation programmes.
Helping the Families who had suffered from the
Zudt
It was earlier on this year when listening to the early morning
"Today" radio show in London that I had learnt that Mongolia had
suffered something called a "Zudt". A Zudt is an exceptionally cold
winter which results in the nomadic herders losing much livestock.
I phoned Brad, the President of the Snow Leopard International
Trust to ask how this was affecting the herder communities
participating in the conservation programmes in the South Gobi and
after some investigation he reported back that there were a large
number of families who had lost the majority of their livestock and
that he was trying to raise $15,000 to provide a disaster relief
fund for the herder families. After consulting with my accountant
and deciding to put on a funraiser in London I called back to Brad
that I would find the money and asked him to please send the
message to the families that we would provide them with relief.
After the money was distributed to the families an invitation came
from the herder families that they would like to say thank you to
the people who had helped them and I decided to travel to
Mongolia (at my own expense) and spend a fortnight doing
volunteer work for the Snow Leopard Trust in the Tost Valley.
Meeting the people
Nadia, the Mongolian PHD student who works for the Trust, very
kindly took me to meet a number of families who were involved
both in the livestock insurance programme and snow leopard
enterprise programme. Bayara, the head of the Snow Leopard Trust
Mongolia, has dedicated ten years to buildling a marvellous
enterprise programme where women are taught to spin wool and make
beautiful handicrafts which are then sold internationally.
Participating families typically will double their annual income
and the families pledge to ensure that no snow leopards are killed
in retribution in their community's territory.
Working wiht the scientists
Orjon and Koustubh the 2 Snow Loepard Trust scientists working on
the Trust's long term field research projects kindly took me under
their wing and set me to work laying camera trips on ridge lines
and monitoring ibex kill sites. It is only through a position of
knowledge that governments and NGOs will be effectively lobbied to
support snow leopard conservation over the long term and that
conservation efforts can be most effectively focused.
An Amazing day
It was on the eve of my mother's birthday that I had the huge, huge
privelege to see a snow leopard out in the wild. My knowledge of
wildlife is such that I realised that the chances of me seeing a
snow leopard in the wild were waiver thin; probably less than 100
westerners have actually seen a snow leopard in the wild. Under the
expert tutelage of Koustubh and Orjon we went out tracking to see
if Aztai might have returned to an ibex kill site in one of the
canyons. The reason why humans rarely see a snow leopard in the
wild and why they are known as the ghosts of the mountain, is due
to the fact that they have superb eye sight, hearing and smell and
will see a human long before the human sees the the snow leopard;
coupled with the fact that they are so well camouflaged. The gods
were looking favourably on us that day as we managed we
approached, what turned out to be Aztai, from the up wind cover of
huge ridge were thus undetected until quite literally we were on
top of the ridge which had a ledge/cave in where he was laying up.
The resulting photographs I took apparently are the closest
(distance wise) anyone has ever photographed a snow leoapard in the
wild. What a privelege.
Local Customs
We have all no doubt heard the expression "jungle telegraph", where
news miraculously travels quickly in the jungle where there are no
telephones or email. Well in my humble expression there is a "broad
band/high speed" version of this known as "desert telegraph". The
local herders have no phones, no computers and typically the
nomadic families live 10-15kms apart from each other. Well news
travels very quickly in the gobi desert. It was only two days after
my arrival that all of the 60 families who live within a 200 square
mile vicinity were aware that an Englishman who had kindly
raised money for the families who suffered from the Zudt was
visting the valley. It however took probably only one day to learn
that this Englishman was a good camel rider and liked the camel
arag (fermented camel milk traditional drink) that he had been
served by one of the families in their gher.