Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Project Update
Wildlife Conservation Society

posted by Skip Waskin on Monday, March 27, 2005, 2:39AM

The Mongolia Project’s GIS and Remote Sensing specialist arrived in New York for a month of training with the WCS Living Landscapes Program staff. February was spent preparing for this visit and organizing the GIS database for the Eastern Steppe, an essential tool for conservation planning.

Policy and Action: Illegal Wildlife Trade
Wildlife Protection Program: Final preparations for a 2006 wildlife protection and training program in the Nomrog Strictly Protected Area of the Eastern Steppe are underway. The wildlife protection program will involve both State Border Defense Agency personnel and Protected Area rangers in a collaborative effort to protect wildlife and biodiversity in the park and its border regions.

Field Research/Living Landscapes Program
Landscape Species Selection: Collection of available data on a list of candidate species for the Landscape species selection process for the Eastern Steppe continued. This will be an ongoing process and is an important step in the identification of conservation landscapes based on the diverse ecological needs of key wildlife species and the geographic location and severity of wildlife/human conflict.

Threats Assessment: A preliminary database of the information collected on threats to wildlife through a series of participatory workshops and interviews is complete. The data will be used to monitor the effect of current and future interventions on the Eastern Steppe.

Gazelle Conservation Management Plan: This has been identified as a key output of the living landscapes project on the Eastern Steppe, and a series of maps and a description of the methodology used to create the plan have been compiled for circulation among the stakeholders.

Siberian Marmot Population Assessment: Methods for assessing marmot populations across the Eastern Steppe have been evaluated based on fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2005. A plan for continued monitoring and management is under development.

Avian Influenza: Surveillance for avian influenza in Mongolia’s wild bird population is under discussion but the availability of funding and scope of this project has not been confirmed.

Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Project Update
Wildlife Conservation Society

posted by Skip Waskin on Wednesday, March 1, 2005, 8:10PM

In January the WCS Living Landscapes Project focused on completing reports and preparing for the 2006 field season. Meetings were held with the Living Landscapes New York-based staff in early January to assess the progress of “threats assessment” and “species selection” in Mongolia, two components of global Living Landscapes Project.

Policy: Illegal Wildlife Trade
Wildlife Trade Report: A report on wildlife trade in Mongolia (based on a World Bank-funded study performed by WCS in the summer of 2005) is in its final stages of editing, translation and approval. Demand for the report and results of the study have been high across government and NGO sectors in Mongolia.

TRAFFIC Workshop: As requested, WCS is ready to assist the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in identifying Mongolian participants for a training addressing the emerging issues surrounding illegal trade in wildlife resources organized by TRAFFIC Russia and funded by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The training will take place in Vladivostok in May 2006.

Field Research/Living Landscapes Program
Gazelle Ecology: The Mongolian gazelle research team is working in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institute to analyze data on gazelle movement and pasture use collected in 2005 in an effort to model and predict the factors that influence gazelle movement and migration on the Eastern Steppe.

Landscape Species Selection: WCS has begun building a list of candidate species and identifying important habitat on the Eastern Steppe in preparation for the final landscape species selection process. Landscape species selection is designed to identify conservation landscapes based on the diverse ecological needs of key wildlife species and the geographic location and severity of wildlife/human conflict.

Threats Assessment: An analysis of the threats to wildlife conservation on the Eastern Steppe, recorded and collected through participatory workshops and interviews, is underway with plans to use the analysis as a baseline for monitoring the effect of current and future interventions.

Avian Influenza: The WCS Field Veterinary Program is planning to repeat surveillance for avian influenza (AI) in migratory birds in Mongolia in 2006 with funding from the Food and Agriculture Association and WCS New York. Opportunities for an expanded AI surveillance and capacity building effort, in partnership with Mercy Corps, Mongolia, and USAID, are under discussion.

Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Project Update
Wildlife Conservation Society

posted by Skip Waskin on Thursday, January 26, 2005, 4:17AM

2005 field season ends. December marked the end of the 2005 WCS field season in the Eastern Steppe with the hosting of a visiting scientist and a final round of livestock/wildlife health data collection. Country Program Director Amanda Fine left Mongolia in mid-December. Before returning to Mongolia, she will engage with the Living Landscapes New York-based staff to facilitate the cross-site learning and collaboration that is a part of the global Living Landscapes Program. The WCS office in Ulaanbaatar is open and operating.

ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE
Enforcement of Wildlife Trade Law. The WCS Mongolia Program Office had an initial meeting with U.S. Embassy of Mongolia staff to identify Mongolian participants in a training program organized by TRAFFIC Russia and funded by the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The goal of the training is to address the emerging issues surrounding illegal trade in wildlife resources (tigers, musk deer, saiga antelope, etc.) and the role of China, Russia, and Mongolia in addressing those issues.

FIELD RESEARCH
International Collaboration. Dr. Roland Frey, an evolutionary morphologist from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, worked in the field with WCS gazelle biologist, Odonkhuu Daria, for three weeks in December. The team traveled throughout the Eastern Steppe to observe the Mongolian gazelle rut (breeding season) and collect the first high quality audio recordings of Mongolian gazelle vocalizations during the rut. The Mongolian gazelle has an extremely large larynx or voice box and its function and evolution is of great interest to evolutionary morphologists. Data collected during the December fieldwork will be analyzed in Dr. Frey’s laboratory in Berlin and shared with the WCS Mongolian gazelle project and larger scientific community.

Gazelle Field Work. Data from the satellite collars placed on four Mongolian gazelles captured to the east and west of the Mongolia-China railroad in October continues. The final 2005 collection of samples for livestock/wildlife disease analysis was performed and the samples have been transported to Ulaanbaatar for processing.