Animal expert in Lincoln to discuss Mongolian species

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BY ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star

And you thought pandas were rare. There are about 1,600 pandas in the world — and fewer than 1,500 wild Bactrian camels.

In fact, Bactrians are the only wild camels the World Conservation Union lists as critically endangered, said Richard Reading, founder and director of the Department of Conservation Biology at the Denver Zoo.

There are only two places wild Bactrian camels can be found: China and Mongolia. And Reading knows both countries well.

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Richard Reading, founder and director of the Department of Conservation Biology at the Denver Zoo. (Courtesy photo)

Richard Reading, founder and director of the Department of Conservation Biology at the Denver Zoo. (Courtesy photo)

He lived in Mongolia for 2½ years in the early 1990s and has worked there for more than 11 years. He also knows a lot about Bactrian camels, a species he has studied extensively in a place where winter temperatures plummet to minus 30 and skyrocket to 120 or more in the summer, when severe dust storms often sweep across the landscape.

Reading described Mongolia as one of the "biggest chunks" of unaltered grasslands in the world, with huge roaming herds of Mongolian gazelles and other species.

"In Mongolia, we have an opportunity to be proactive because it is a very undeveloped country," Reading said. "You can travel by horse for 2,500 kilometers and not open a gate … It has one of the lowest population densities in the world."

Reading will be in Lincoln next week to talk about his research with Bactrian camels and other species in Mongolia. He also will discuss the importance of species conservation — not only in faraway places such as Asia, but in places such as Nebraska.

Reading will talk about the prairie dog and its importance to the recovery of the endangered black-footed ferret. Ferrets require healthy populations of prairie dogs, which make up about 80 percent of their diet.

"If you don't have prairie dogs, you don't have black-footed ferrets, period," Reading said in a recent phone interview.

Reading's visit to Lincoln is sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Great Plains Studies and the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains, a Lincoln-based prairie grassland conservation group, and Folsom Children's Zoo.

On Wednesday, Reading will talk to Zoo School students and others about his ongoing work in Mongolia, especially his study of wild Bactrian camels. The zoo has two domesticated but aging Bactrian camels, Tibet and Kalif, and that's one reason why it has helped fund Reading's research with the two-humped beasts.

"We like to fund research with animals that are connected to the zoo," director John Chapo said.

Tyler Sutton, president of the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains, said Reading also will talk about the role zoos play in conservation outreach.

"Zoos have started to redefine themselves because they recognize that we are in this period of crisis because we are losing species faster than when the dinosaurs went extinct," Reading said.

In their new role, zoos are becoming conservation and education centers instead of places people go for entertainment, he said.

"We can be ambassadors to the world for conservation," Reading said. "We can show these species that are endangered and explain why they are endangered."

The black-footed ferret is an example of how zoos have helped save animals on the brink of extinction.

Said Reading: "The black-footed ferrets were saved by the zoo community. They went extinct in the wild."

Efforts are under way to introduce the black-footed ferret back into the wild, but it's been a struggle. So far, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to establish 10 separate populations of overwintering adults but only one, in South Dakota, has been successful, Reading said.

One of the key reasons, he said: "We don't have large populations of prairie dogs."

Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.

 

Prairie dogs and humans

The public is invited to a free lecture, "Human and Ecological Dimensions of Prairie Dog Conservation," by Richard Reading, director of conservation biology for the Denver Zoological Foundation. His presentation will be at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 27 at the Great Plains Art Museum, Hewit Place, 1155 Q St. There also will be a 3 p.m. reception. Reading, who has lived and worked extensively in Mongolia, has written more than 125 papers and books on wildlife and conservation. The EarthWatch project leader has done extensive research on grasslands conservation, argali sheep, wild Bactrian camels, cinereous vulture and small carnivores.