Great Bustard
Status: III, Critically Endangered, CR: R, A1. The nominative subspecies Otis tarda tarda Linnaeus, 1758 inhabits Kyrgyzstan.
Distribution general and in the country. In Africa - northern Morocco, in Eurasia - the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula and from the Elbe basin, Austria, Slovakia, east to southern Primorye. To the north to northern Poland, the central part of the Chernihiv region, southern parts of Bryansk, Tula, Ryazan, Penza regions, southern Bashkortostan, in western Siberia to the 55th parallel, the area of Minusinsk, Barnaul, Eastern Sayan, further east to the north to the 54th parallel, the lower Zeya, Khangai lowland. To the south to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, Asia Minor, Azerbaijan, Iran. East of the Caspian Sea to the lower reaches of the Ural River, the lower reaches of the Turga and Irgiz rivers, in eastern Kazakhstan to the 47th parallel. Through the Tian Shan to the northern edge of the Gobi Desert, the Greater Khingan, Heilongjiang Province, Primorye. In India and Pakistan - a sedentary species [7, 15, 19]. In the Kyrgyz Republic, it has been found in the Chu and Issyk-Kul valleys, the high-altitude areas of the Inner Tien Shan, and in the south around Uzgen [2].
Habitat. Prefers open semi-desert and steppe habitats with sparse shrub vegetation, interspersed with crops.
Population. There is no accurate modern data on population numbers. However, it can be stated that the Great Bustard is extremely rare everywhere; for example, in long-term route counts in the northern part of Kyrgyzstan, the Great Bustard was not encountered even once, and counts conducted at 44 points across Kyrgyzstan also did not reveal the presence of the Great Bustard in the autumn period. Surveys conducted in the winter period in the Issyk-Kul basin and Naryn region also did not reveal wintering of the Great Bustard [16, 18, 31, 56, 71, 72].
Life style (life cycles). Usually found in small groups of 3-4 birds, sometimes, especially in winter and during migrations, they gather in groups of up to 25-30 individuals. They run very well, take off with difficulty, but once airborne, they fly powerfully, rhythmically flapping their broad wings. They are omnivorous but prefer plant food - grains and other crops, and their diet also includes beetles, lizards, and others. The Great Bustard is a polygamous bird; the male mates with several females. Females lay only one, and rarely two, olive-brown eggs with dark brown speckles. Only females incubate the eggs.
Limiting factors. Plowing of suitable nesting habitats, nest destruction, poaching.
Breeding (keeping in captivity). There is no reliable information available.
Existing conservation measures. No special conservation measures have been planned.
Recommended conservation measures. It is necessary to protect nesting and migratory sites by creating mini-reserves. Identify farmers whose crops suffer from visits by the Great Bustard and consider mechanisms for compensating losses during mass migrations. It is essential to impose a complete ban on shooting and introduce significant fines for hunting Great Bustards. It is advisable to map identified nests and conduct monitoring of annual population dynamics.
Чон тooдaк
Great Bustard
Otis tarda Linnaeus, 1758, ssp. tarda Linnaeus, 1758
Status: III category, Critically Endangered, CR: R, A1. Inhabited steppe zones in Chu Valley, Issyk-Kul Region, highlands of Inner Tien Shan, in the south of the country - around Uzgen town. Prefers open semidesert and steppe biotopes with scarce shrubs and cultivated zones. No data on numbers available. It is extremely rare. Transect surveys of birds’ populations in Kyrgyzstan for the past 2 decades did record a single bird seen or heard neither in breeding nor in winter seasons. Usually flocks consisting of 5-30 up to 300 birds were seen regularly both in migrating and winter seasons. Great Bustard is a polygamous bird; the male mates with several females, each of them lays 1 or sometimes 2 eggs, which are incubated only by females. Among limiting factors are ploughing up natural habitats suitable for nesting, nests destruction, illegal game shooting. There are no data on holding the bird in captivity. Special protection measures were not undertaken yet. It is recommended to protect existing semidesert and steppe zones from ploughing them up, identify those farmers whose fields are subject to the Great Bustard’s negative impact and figure out possible mechanisms of compensations if crop losses are much too high. It is necessary to streamline commercial hunting after Great Bustards and introduce serious fines for illegal poaching.
