For the second year, we’re coordinating winter counts of Great Bustards in southern Kazakhstan, southeastern Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, in addition to the ongoing work of our master’s student in Uzbekistan. These surveys are being carried out with the support of National Geographic, and partners Association for Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, Dikaya Priroda, and colleagues in Turkmenistan. The goal of these coordinated multi-country surveys is to clarify the total number of Great Bustards in Central Asia, which are more dispersed and difficult to count during the breeding season. Our current estimate for the number of Western Great Bustards remaining in broader Central Asia is 1000-1500 individuals.
January 2020
Photo: M. Kessler