Mongolian Gazelle - Procapra gutturosa

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The Mongolian gazelle is a medium-sized antelope. The Russian name Dzeren is a corruption of the Mongolian name Zeer. In the summer the coat of the Mongolian gazelle is light brown with pinkish tones, becoming longer and paler during the winter. It has a distinctive heart-shapes white patch on the rump area, divided by a median line of darker colour. The muzzle, chin, and jowls are white, while the bridge of the nose may be slightly darker than the body colour.

During the breeding season, males develop a swollen throat, which resembles the condition of goiter, and are also said to have a bulbous muzzle. The eyes are small, but protrude from the head. Only males carry the dark gray, lyre-shaped horns, which curl backwards from the forehead and then run virtually parallel to the back. Slightly ridged along most of their length, the horns grow 25 to 40 cm long and diverge along their length, so that the tips are 6 to 10 times farther apart than the bases.

The typical body length is around 100 to 150 cm, with a shoulder height of 54 to 84 cm. The tail length is 8 to 12 cm. The body weight of an adult Mongolian gazelle is between 20 and 39 kg.

Male with swollen throat

Habitat and food

Mongolian gazelles inhabit plains, hilly steppes, semi-deserts, inter-montaine basins, and broad valleys. They avoid rocky or broken terrain, narrow valleys, high-altitude steppes, forest, shrub thickets, and sand dunes, unless driven there by exceptional circumstances. The dry steppes of eastern Mongolia form the optimal habitat for Mongolian gazelles.

The main food plants are Allium polyrrhizum, Stipa capillata, S. gobica, Agropyrum pseudoagropyrum, Kochia prostrata, Koeleria gracilis, and Artemisia spp.

Group structure

Mongolian gazelle occur individually and in small groups, commonly comprising 20 to 30 animals. Larger assemblies take place in June-July, when females gather in huge herds during the calving period, and 40,000 animals may remain for two weeks within an area of 35 km2, and again in August-September, when as many as 80,000 have been observed together.

In September 2007 a group of 250,000 gazelles was observed by a group of scientists. Only during the mating and birthing seasons do they stay in particular places for a short time, otherwise they move constantly around their range. Part of the population migrates annually across the Mongolian-Chinese border, migrating to China in March-April and back to Mongolia in August-October. While migrating, gazelles can easily cover 40-80 km per day.

Reproduction

The rut takes place between mid-November and the first week of February, although dates vary from year to year depending on climate. One male can mate with 6 to 25 females, but the average harem size is 13 females. Males are sexually mature by the age of two and a half years and females at one and a half years. Normally silent, males may make a loud bellow during the rut.

The gestation period is about 185 days. Females usually give birth from mid-June to mid-July, but about 90% of females giving birth do so over a period of only four to seven days. Occurence of twins is 2,5-8,2 %. The young are weaned after about 5 monts. Mongolian gazelle have a life span of about 7 years.

Characteristics of Mongolian gazelle

In autumn and winter, these gazelles are active during the daylight hours, grazing in the morning and late afternoon. Beds are excavated in the lee of bushes where the animals are sheltered from the wind.

Very speedy dzeren can gallop up to 65 km/h, and sustain this speed for 12-15 kilometres, leaping up to 2 meters into the air at intervals. They are good swimmers and can cross large rivers.
Movement patterns in general are still poorly understood. Distribution is also influenced by plague of the Vole Lasiopodomys brandti. Over the past 15 years, a sharp increase in the vole population has degraded pastures over a huge area of Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces, and the gazelles have left these areas and moved north.

Wolf, (sheperds') dog, feral dog, Red fox, Corsac fox and raptors (e.g. Golden eagle).

World population

The world population was estimated at 400,000-2,700,000 individuals in 2003.

Mongolia

The present size of the population in Mongolia is unclear. In the 1940s the population was estimated at about 1,000,000.
Recent estimates have put Mongolian gazelle numbers at:

• 250,000-270,000 in 1978
• 180,000-200,000 in 1975-1976
• 250,000 in 1979
• 300,000-400,000 in 1982

From an aerial survey in 1989, Mongolian zoologists estimated a population of about 400,000.
However, another aerial survey in 1994 carried out jointly by Nature Conservation International, the UNDP Mongolian Biodiversity Project and Mongolian zoologists, estimated a population of about 2,000,000.
A 1995 survey showed that the Khomin Tal population has risen to more than 3,500 individuals. The Khomin Tal population is now believed to be around 400.

An outbreak of foot rot, a bacterial infection caused by Fuscobacterium necroforum causing swelling of the feet above the hooves, killed large numbers of gazelles during summer of 1998 and resulted in the cancellation of the commercial hunt in 1998.

China

Chinese Mongolian gazelle population was estimated at:

• 800,000-1,000,000  during 1960s
• 2,000,000 in 1950s-1970s
• 500,000 during 1980s,
• 200,000 in 1992
• 300,000 in 1993
• 250,000 in 1994 (1/3 remaining on Chinese territory)
• 80,000-85,000 in 2003

Russia

The population in Daursky Steppe in Russia has grown from 15 in 1993 to 700 in 2004 thanks to good protection (e.g. anti-poaching, protected area establishment). Currently the population is believed to be over 1,000.

• China
• Kazakhstan
• Mongolia
• Russia

• Mongolian Steppe
• Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolian gazelles were formerly distributed throughout steppes and semi-deserts across Mongolia from west to east.

Until about 1950, Mongolian gazelles were distributed over almost all the steppe and semi desert zones of Mongolia within a range of 780,000 km2, and they numbered 1,500,000. Mongolian gazelles were once common in the west of the country, but by the end of the 1970s, this species had virtually disappeared from western Mongolia and only one isolated population remains on the Khomin Tal Steppe in Zavhan Aimag province, to the southeast of Har-Nuur Lake. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, its range was reduced by 70%. Large concentrations still occur in the steppes of eastern Mongolia, but only small, scattered populations remain in central and southern Mongolia.

Russia

Mongolian gazelles were formerly found in Russia at three localities along the border with Mongolia.
During the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds were seen regularly on the Chuya Steppe, along the Tes-Khem River in southern Tuva and in the Uvs Nuur Basin. They were most numerous in Transbaikalia, where in a few winters (e.g. 1925-26 and 1944-45) several thousand were seen. By the mid-1970s, total numbers reaching Transbaikalia were at most 200 and, from 1975 to 1981, only small groups and individual animals were seen between the Onon and Arguni Rivers.

China

Precise limits of the historical range in China are unclear. Mongolian gazelle reached the Beijing plains at the beginning of this century, but they had disappeared from south of the great Wall by 1950. Overhunting has considerably reduced their range and numbers. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Mongolian gazelle range covered an estimated 290,592 km2, which was reduced to 123,840 km2 by the 1980s.

Kazakhstan

At the beginning of this century, Mongolian gazelles were noted around the North-eastern border of Kazakhstan in the Ili basin and Irtysh Valley, but they later disappeared there completely. They are now extinct in Kazakhstan.

Mongolia

The range of the Mongolian gazelles in Mongolia has now been reduced to about 190,000 km2, but 55 years ago it was around 780,000km2. Besides the small population on the Khomin Tal Steppe a few scattered herds occur in central and southern Monolia. The centre of Mongolian gazelle distribution lies in the eastern steppes, mainly in Dornod, Khentii, Sukhbaatar, and Dornogov provinces, where they have always been most common.

Russia

In Russia the Mongolian gazelle can be found in the Dauria steppes bordering Mongolia. Thanks to conservation actions, the animals arriving sporadically from Mongolia have established a small but permanent population.

China

The current population in China covers an area of about 73,152 km2, just 25% of the range of the 1950s-1970s. Distribution is now limited to the province of Inner Mongolia and consists of a narrow band along the international border with Mongolia. Two main population centres have been indentified: the Xinbaragyouqi region (near lake Hulun Nur) in eastern Inner Mongolia and Dongwuqi County. Part of the population migrates annually across the border into Mongolia.

Railway fence

The Ulaanbaatar-Beijing Railway that runs through the habitat of Mongolian gazelle has been fenced on both sides to prevent livestock straying on the track. This has effectively divided Mongolian gazelle range in Mongolia, preventing movement between populations and hindering recolonisation of former range to the west.

Border fencing

The border fencing, with barbed wire, between Mongolia and Russia is a serious, continuing threat to the migration between the two countries. In 2008 thousands of Mongolian gazelles had concentrated on the border of Mongolia and Russia in their search for food and water. Because of continuing droughts in Eastern Mongolia, the animals had migrated to the north, hoping to find food and water in Russia/Dauria. Several animals died because of the barbed wire and many could not make the crossing.

Various factors

Various factors have contributed to the decline of the gazelle populations, including climate, disease, hunting, and increasing numbers of domestic livestock. Relevant climatic factors are drought and, in particular, the set of severe winter conditions known as dzuud, when a frozen ice-crust covers the ground, hindering or preventing access to forage. Dzuuds occur irregularly, with the average interval being seven years since records began in 1932.

Illegal hunting, competition with livestock

Illegal hunting and competition with livestock have increased recently as a result of major political and economic changes in Mongolia following its transition to a market economy and the break-up of the former USSR. The subsequent weakening of central authority, a severe economic crisis, an increase in the growth rate of the human population, and the importance of meat in the Mongolian diet have all contributed to an increase in the amount of illegal hunting of large mammals, including antelopes. Many people have reacted to the difficult economic situation by moving from cities back to the countryside. An increase in number of herding families has occurred, as well as an increase in livestock numbers and the use of many new areas for grazing.

Increased mining

Increased mining operations pose a serious threat to the Mongolian gazelle population.

Mongolian gazelles are an important economic resource and have always been hunted for their high quality meat, tongue, skin, horn, and sub-products (liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, and fat). The durable skin is used for making good quality box-calf and chamois.

Mongolian gazelles are also hunted as trophy by foreign hunters.

• WWF Mongolia
• WWF Russia

• Legal aspects of (Re-)introduction of large herbivores

• Large herbivores on the move
• Status report 2007 of the large herbivores of the palaeartic