Understanding population baselines: status of mountain ungulate populations in the Central Tien Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan

We assessed the density of argali (Ovis ammon) and ibex (Capra sibirica) in Sarychat-Ertash Nature Reserve and its neighbouring Koiluu valley. Sarychat is a protected area, while Koiluu is a human-use landscape which is a partly licenced hunting concession for mountain ungulates and has several livestock herders and their permanent residential structures. Population monitoring of mountain ungulates can help in setting measurable conservation targets such as appropriate trophy hunting quotas and to assess habitat suitability for predators like snow leopards (Panthera uncia). We employed the double-observer method to survey 573 km² of mountain ungulate habitat inside Sarychat and 407 km² inside Koiluu. The estimated densities of ibex and argali in Sarychat were 2.26 (95% CI 1.47–3.52) individuals km⁻² and 1.54 (95% CI 1.01–2.20) individuals km⁻², respectively. Total ungulate density in Sarychat was 3.80 (95% CI 2.47–5.72) individuals km⁻². We did not record argali in Koiluu, whereas the density of ibex was 0.75 (95% CI 0.50–1.27) individuals km⁻². While strictly protected areas can achieve high densities of mountain ungulates, multi-use areas can harbour meaningful though suppressed populations. Conservation of mountain ungulates and their predators can be enhanced by maintaining Sarychat-like “pristine” areas interspersed within a matrix of multi-use areas like Koiluu.