I really wanted to see wildlife while in Mongolia. I finally got to see some at Hustai National Park. Thanks to my friends at New Milestone Tours I got to see some spectacular wildlife. One encounter made up for the wild horses being so far away.
Where is the Mongolian wildlife?
Traveling all over the wilderness with little to no infrastructure on my Gobi tour, I expected to see a lot more wildlife than I did. I saw the cute little pikas, some large birds of prey, some smaller animals like lizards and other birds, and three Mongolian gazelles far in the distance. But 99 percent of the animals I saw were domesticated goats, sheep, cows, camels, and horses.
People told me that the native species haven’t been seen in a long time in some places. I assume, based on what I saw, because they have been pushed out, not by development but by over grazing. Happily, some Mongolians see this problem too and work to protect habitat for wild animals to thrive. It is a bit ironic they have to fight so hard for this since Mongolia was the first place in the world to have a designated-by-law nature preserve, 94 years before Yellowstone (the world’s first national park) was created.
Now, eleven national parks covering tens of thousands of square miles protect, to an extent, Mongolia’s wildlife and natural beauty. However, some of these parks are not parks as envisioned by those of us from the U.S. because nomads still roam and graze their herds and flocks on the land. A few places receive special protection such as a section of Hustai National Park, which is listed as a UNESCO World Biosphere Nature Reserve. That’s where I got a taste of Mongolian wildlife that left me salivating for more.
Boutique Gers
I arrived at Hustai National Park after a short drive from Ulaanbaatar and stretched my legs at the gers of a lovely nomadic family New Milestone Tours works with to host tour guests. I examined the boutique gers the tour company has helped the family acquire to make their guests’ stays more pleasant. I can say that they are much nicer than any of the gers I stayed in during my week-long Gobi tour (through a different tour company). The bed was comfy and they were clean. They even had a clean, more sanitary, toilet situation, and a camp shower. Oh, and the location was idyllic!
The company has also worked with their hosts on the menu, so it isn’t just a simple variation of the same food every day like is standard in Mongolia’s countryside. My host prepared a delicious meal of traditional Mongolian khoshor or meat dumplings but with a gourmet twist. It was some of the best Mongolian food I ate the whole month I was there.
Animals!
Our excursion into the protected area of Hustai National Park led to some fun animal sightings. We had to search and search because the horses and other wildlife blend right in to their rocky surroundings. These horses are truly wild horses known as Takhi or Przewalski’s horses. Though extinct in the wild at one time, their reintroduction to parts of Mongolia has been successful. There are roughly 400 of this beautiful animal in the wild today, many in this park. We only spotted them from a distance hiding amongst some rocks.
Our time in the park was not fruitless for other wildlife sightings though with many a marmot being present. We also saw some beautiful large birds of prey up close, a magnificent black stork, and a herd of deer mixed with some more domesticated-looking horses. The highlight, though, was an up-close encounter with a wild sheep. It was right down near the track. I approached it within several meters and got some great pictures.
Turkic Grave
Hustai National Park is best known for its horse population, and that’s why most people go there. However, it also holds a special historical site. At the national museum, I learned about the history of Mongolia pre-Genghis Khan. Turns out, there have been many thriving empires and civilizations over the ages based in the steppe. One of those was the Turkic civilization. At the museum, I was introduced to them and their archeological remnants by way of funerary monuments scattered across the steppe. Stone figures marked these graves.
Hustai has one of these graves from more than 1,400 years ago complete with several human figures carved of stone, some animal figures and other ceremonial stone pieces, and a trail of stone markers more than a kilometer long extending into the grassland. It is a magnificent piece of history, which we had to ourselves.
