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Long eared jerboa research in Great Gobi Desert

By on December 1, 2009 in EDGE Fellows, Focal species, Long-eared jerboa, Mammals, Uncategorized

Hello. Dear Blog readers.

This time I am going to introduce our research about long eared jerboa distribution in Great Gobi Protected area.

Our research started 12th July – after Mongolian national celebration, called Naadam – and finished 25th August. We went total up to 5000 km roads. Sometimes we went without road. This is most wide area, which don’t live any people, except only rangers, border soldier. So going without some rangers and person who know roads and water resources is very dangerous.

Because we went to Great Gobi with senior expert of Great Gobi Protected area administration, we hadn’t any losting problems. Because of little car breaking, sometimes we used to go back soum center to replace broken part and petrol. In this area border soldiers used to help us very well.

We checked six site from 14 site of old Russian research (red numbered sites on map). So we found some long eared jerboa from 4 sites – sites 12, 4, 6, 3.  In other words, in our research, long eared jerboa’s distribution was decreased by 34 percent of sites since 1974.

If this process continue without any conservation similarly, in 2050 long eared jerboa’s distribution will be decreased 42 percentages from current distribution. It is only elementary conclusion. When we look at this elementary conclusion, it seemed tragic. So I expected not only long eared jerboa’s distribution is decreasing, but also other desert rodents’ distribution is decreasing.

Our first site was front of Aj Bogd mountain.  This site was west point of Old Russian research distribution. At that moment I thought whether there was long eared jerboa in this old site before set equipments on the ground. . .

…So tomorrow morning when we check all traps, we’re glad to see long eared jerboa. We found 2 jerboa in first day. Those were little beautiful Gobi micky mouses. I’ve written about long eared jerboa previous blogs. If you interest it, see EDGE blog.

Also we studied long eared jerboa behavior by using radio telemetry equipments. Research has looked at long eared jerboa behavior with overlap home range and illustrated that this species don’t like social communication. Long eared jerboa had specific behaviour jumping and kick by front leg each other during this meeting. After couple close each other, they ran actively.

In the end, I would like to represent my acknowledgements. When we go to Great Gobi desert studying long eared jerboa current distribution, PTES and ZSL-EDGE helped us very well. Also I thank National University of Mongolia teacher, local people, rangers, border soldiers, my assistant students and good driver very much.

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