Assessment of the global population size of the Mongolian gazelle Procapra gutturosa BAY A R B A ATA R B UUVEI BAATAR * 1 ,SAMAN T H A S TRINDBERG 2
BARKHASBA A TAR ARIUNBAATAR 1 ,SODNOMPI L B AT D O R J 3,TSO GT BAT Z A Y A 4 TSE RENDE L EG DASH P UREV4,NANDINTSETSEG DEJID 5 ,VAD IM E. KIRI L Y U K 6, 7
THOMAS MUE LLER 5, 8 ,GALSANDORJ NARAN BAATAR 3 ,B AAT A RGAL OTG O N B AYA R 3 ENKHTUVSHIN SHIILEGDAMBA1 ,JAMBALSUREN TSOLMON 1,DORJ USUK H JAR G AL 4 GANBOLD UUGANBAY A R 4 and KIRK A. OLSON 1, 9
Abstract The Mongolian gazelle Procapra gutturosa is a wild ungulate ubiquitous across the largest remaining tem- perate grasslands of Mongolia, Russia and China. The spe- cies is nomadic and ranges over long distances, resulting in widely fluctuating abundance in any given location. Therefore, a comprehensive and range-wide survey is re- quired to accurately estimate its global population size, but challenges are posed by the expansive geographical dis- tribution and the political boundaries across the species’ vast range. To obtain an estimate of the total population, we compiled data from recent range-wide surveys. During 2019–2020, we estimated the population size in Mongolia by conducting line transect distance surveys and total counts, and by deriving numerical predictions for unsur- veyed areas through data analysis. The gazelle’s population in Russia was surveyed in 2020 across its summer range using simultaneous counts, transect surveys and expert knowledge. The distance sampling surveys in Mongolia revealed that slightly more than half of the gazelles along the transects were detected. Our assessment of the gazelle population, although probably an underestimate, suggests there are c. 2.14 million individuals in Mongolia and c. 30,000 in Russia. These results confirm that the Mongolian gazelle is the most abundant nomadic ungulate in the open plains across its range. However, to obtain more accurate estimates across all range states and effectively
*Corresponding author,
buuveibaatar@wcs.org 1Wildlife Conservation Society, Mongolia Program, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 2Wildlife Conservation Society, Global Conservation Program, New York City,
New York, USA 3Institute of Biology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 4Khustai National Park, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia 5Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt (Main),
Germany 6Institute of Natural Resources, Ecology and Cryology, Siberian Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, Chita, Russia 7Daursky State Nature Biosphere Reserve, Nizhniy Tsasuchey, Russia 8Department of Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt
(Main), Germany 9Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, Virginia, USA
Received 9 October 2022. Revision requested 2 February 2023. Accepted 21 September 2023. First published online 15 April 2024.
monitor the gazelle’s population status, it is essential to imple- ment standardized survey protocols that correct for imperfect detection. At present, themanagement of theMongolian gaz- elle is inadequate, as there is a lack of regular monitoring to identifyany adversepopulationchanges that could necessitate conservation interventions.
Keywords Density estimates, distance sampling, Mongolia, Mongolian gazelle, population size, Procapra gutturosa, Russia, temperate grassland
The supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605323001515
Introduction
distance migrant ungulates in the grasslands ofMongolia and adjacent areas of Russia and China. Globally, the spe- cies is categorized as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2016b). However, thepopulationinRussia was extirpated in the early 1970s and the species only returned to the country in the 2000s as a result of conservation interventions and transboundary movements from Mongolia. The ga- zelle’s core habitat in Mongolia is one of the largest re- maining intact temperate grasslands (Batsaikhan et al., 2014). The gazelles are remarkable for their long-distance nomadic movements across the landscape, often in large groups (Olson et al., 2009a;Joly et al., 2019;Nandintsetseg et al., 2019). Thesemovements are driven by dynamic for- age resources whose availability is determined by unpre- dictable precipitation patterns (Mueller et al., 2008;Ito et al., 2013b). The major threats documented for the spe- cies include habitat fragmentation and conversion, dis- placement by livestock, unsustainable hunting and disease spill-over from livestock (Wingard & Zahler, 2006; Yoshihara et al., 2008; Bolortsetseg et al., 2012;Ito et al., 2013a).
T
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 759–768 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001515
he Mongolian gazelle Procapra gutturosa (hereafter ‘gazelle’) is one of the few remaining open-plains long-
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