Hustai National Park is famous for being home to a
successful wild Przewalski horse reintroduction project. We stayed at the
park for a month, as field assistants to some resourceful grad
students.
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| Taking measurements from Amur falcoms |
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| an Amur falcon fledgling |
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| checking nests |
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| an angry kite on her nest |
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| In the winter, Bactrian camels are beautiful. This was the summer time. |
We latched on to so many projects at Hustai that I
won’t muddle this post with the details, but I’ll try to tell a story or
two.
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One early morning I was jogging down the park’s main dirt
road, when I surprised two Bactrian camels. The camels live at the park to give rides to the odd
tourist.
One camel loped away easily
as only his two massive front feet were hobbled together. But the second camel, my favorite
camel, had a nose piercing through which a large splinter of wood was attached
by a short tether to his ankle. He
couldn’t run away very well, because with every lumbering step, he yarded on his
nose piercing.
Soon he gave up and
looked at me in absolute forlorn.
He couldn’t stretch out his neck or look around like his friend, and
when he raised his head as high as his nose-tether would allow, he and I were
eye-to eye. He had a
nose-bleed. And, I swear, as I stood there
facing him, he shed one giant shiny tear that ran down his face and dripped onto my
running shoe.
I have never seen a
more pitiful one-tonne creature. Bactrian
camels are very tall; they are monstrous and hairy, and ugly as sin. I felt like the mouse in Aesop’s fable
about the lion with a thorn in his paw.
I looked around furtively, but there was no one in sight. So, I deviously untied the poor camel,
and he groaned as he stretched out his neck, and ambled off towards his buddy.
Later that day I saw the little park cowboy chasing after him and
losing ground, as a group of British gentlemen waited politely for their camel
ride. I ducked my head sheepishly and hurried away from the scene of my crime.
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| taking some promotional photos for the park |
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| Hustai, main camp |
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| The research station |
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| wild horses |
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| some lovely camouflage |
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| red deer |
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| Edelweiss |
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| kite |
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| students from the US, Holland, France, and Mongolia (L to R) |
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| horses escaping the flies |
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| a Przewalski foal a few days after surviving a possible wolf attack. the green is fly spray. |
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| this horse, not my friend |
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As part of Tim-the-Dutch-grad-student’s research, he wanted
to measure fly densities around grazing Przewalski horses. Dayle and I estimated this by counting
flies on tethered domestic horses at particular GPS points around the
park. It was a great gig. We’d get up early, each ride a horse to
one of Tim’s GPS locations, tether the horse to a peg, and spend the rest of
the day tanning, spotting wildlife, and counting flies.
Watching 6 foot Dayle fly across the landscape on a little,
full-maned, short-legged pony every morning was a sight to see.
But there was one horse that I just did not get along
with. He was a grey,
free-thinking, pot-bellied thing, and he liked me even less than I liked
him. He always managed to pull out
his tether because to him, the grass beyond his reach held such promise, such
potential, compared to the very same green grass at his feet. So every 15 minutes, I was sneaking up
behind him to futilely drive his peg back into the ground. Of course, the rest of the time I was lounging in my turquoise bikini in the shade, knee high riding boots and wooden
saddle resting beside me.
Then one day, he pulled out his peg, heard a wild horse whiney
from across the valley, and took off.
Not fast. Just slowly enough
to make me think I might catch him.
Oh, he lured me all the way across the valley and up the other side in my
boots and my bikini, as I slipped on shale, and tripped into marmot holes, and
cursed him all the way.
Then, he disappeared over a ridge and was gone. I looked back across the valley to
where I had left my clothes. At
the bottom, I could see a jeep full of European tourists
eyeing me curiously through their binoculars. I was not amused.
I wondered what the park rangers would say when they found out I’d lost
their horse.
But once I’d slipped and slid back down the hill to gather
my things, thrown pony’s heavy-arsed saddle over my back, and schlepped it far
enough down the road to hitch a ride back home, I found grey nasty pony back in
camp scarfing grass with his friends.
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| healthy Przewalski foals |
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| counting flies |
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| Amur fledgling |
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| who will win? The Mongolian ranger, or the starving grad student? |
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