In the South Gobi, GPS collars, camera traps and data loggers transform a remote reserve into a conservation laboratory

The new field season in the Tost Mountains, in the Mongolian province of Ömnögovi, clearly explains how the conservation of rare fauna is changing. It's no longer just direct observation, patience, and local knowledge, but a network of tools that collects data in places where human presence remains sporadic: GPS collars, camera traps, little ones thermal sensors, territorial models and work with local communities.

The case concerns the Snow leopard, one of the most elusive big cats of Central Asia, and in particular the area of ​​the Tost Mountains, in the southern Gobi. Here it Snow Leopard Trust For years, it has been conducting a long-term monitoring program, built around a simple but difficult-to-implement principle: to protect a species that moves over vast distances and lives in extreme habitats, it is necessary to know not only how many individuals are present, but how they use space, where they reproduce, which passes connect mountain ranges, and how human activities alter these routes.

According to the update published on May 20, 2026, during the spring field season, the research team collared two new snow leopards, checked some camera traps, and installed small temperature recorders in eight known dens. The choice not to make precise locations public is an integral part of the methodology: the area can be imagined in the Tost Mountains or in the Tost-Tosonbumba Nature Reserve, but dens, collars and devices should not be associated with point coordinates, for reasons of species safety.

The most likely study site is therefore the Tost Mountains study area, located in the South Gobi region, around 43,2 degrees north and 100,5 degrees east, with elevations ranging from 1.600 to 2.400 meters. It is an arid environment, with wide temperature variations and limited water availability, where technology does not replace field ecology, but rather makes it measurable over time.

Eight dens monitored to understand the pups' microclimate

The most innovative element of the season is not only the tracking of the two new individuals, but the attention to microclimate of the burrowsThe small thermal data loggers were placed in eight known cavities that were unoccupied at the time of installation. The goal was to compare internal and external temperatures and assess how cavity conditions might affect females during pup rearing.

“We want to understand how the temperature differs inside the dens compared to the surrounding environment and how this affects females when they care for their pups,”

the researcher wrote Örjan Johansson in the field note of the Snow Leopard Trust.

The sentence clarifies the leap in scale of the research. GPS tracking describes movements over kilometers; camera traps They confirm presence, behavior, and family composition; thermal loggers, on the other hand, delve into the refuge dimension, the most delicate point of the reproductive cycle. In an area where water can become a limiting factor and temperatures fluctuate markedly, the thermal comfort of a cavity is not a naturalistic detail, but an ecological variable.

The 2026 season also provided clues about the status of some previously known females. Camera traps confirmed that F19 was still with three cubs in mid-April, while images did not directly confirm the whereabouts of F12, although her movement patterns suggest she was not alone. Therefore, the research does not transform the animal into a point on a map: it combines different clues, reduces uncertainty, and accepts that some behavior remains invisible.

The new pair of collared animals adds another layer of information. F21 is a female estimated to be between 8 and 10 years old, photographed in the same area over multiple seasons; M26 is a male of approximately two years old, the offspring of F21 and born in 2024. For researchers, his possible departure from the Tost would be particularly significant: juvenile dispersal can reveal movement corridors, crossing points, and barriers created by roads, railways, or other infrastructure.

From GPS collar to map: the reserve becomes a data system

The conservation of Snow leopard In the Tost Mountains, it shows how environmental innovation is increasingly a process of integration. A single device isn't enough. Value arises when heterogeneous data is linked: GPS coordinates, camera trap images, den temperatures, field observations, prey availability, and grazing information. In this sense, the mountain range functions as a distributed platform, not a closed laboratory.

The work of Snow Leopard Trust It fits into a broader picture. According to the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, the species is classified as vulnerable, and global estimates remain difficult because its distribution is fragmented and direct observations are rare. MongoliaA national assessment published in 2021 indicated the presence of approximately 953 snow leopards, with a confidence interval between 806 and 1.127 adult individuals, according to GSLEP program reports. These numbers should be interpreted with caution, but they are useful for understanding the country's role in conserving the species.

The Tost-Tosonbumba Nature Reserve is a particularly significant case, also from an institutional perspective. The reserve was approved in 2016 as a federal protected area, with restrictions on mining and hunting, but compatible with traditional herding practices. This balance is crucial: the felines do not live in empty spaces, but in inhabited landscapes, traversed by nomadic families, herds, trails, infrastructure, and economic interests.

From an innovation perspective, the issue isn't just scientific. The project builds an operational model in which biological research, territorial management e community conservation They influence each other. Knowing where a young dispersing male passes isn't just useful for describing behavior: it can inform decisions about infrastructure, grazing, conservation priorities, and the mitigation of conflicts between predators and herders.

GIS shifts focus from individual animals to corridors

A second strand, complementary to the work in the Tost Mountains, comes from the Nature Conservancy. In 2026, the organization described a project in Mongolia Western that uses GIS and habitat modeling to identify suitable areas and potential movement corridors. The method combines data from camera traps, grazing areas, habitat clusters, and landscape features, with the aim of understanding where leopards might be moving, even when they cannot be directly observed.

This shift is important because it shifts the unit of analysis from the individual to the ecological system. A collar tells the story of an animal's trajectory; a predictive map attempts to estimate the most likely routes for a population. The Nature Conservancy reports that the model identifies ideal habitats of at least 230 square kilometers, a size deemed sufficient for at least one snow leopard, and connects these habitats to highlight the most plausible routes.

“When you see the impact on people in their daily lives, it becomes even clearer why communities need to be able to use this information on the ground,”

he observed Erica Anderson, Conservation Information Manager of The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, talking about her work with Mongolian communities.

The value of GIS The key, therefore, lies not in producing a static map, but in the ability to make decisions that would otherwise remain abstract, debatable and acceptable. If a grazing area overlaps an ecological corridor, ranchers can assess risks, periods of use, and possible adaptations. If a new infrastructure crosses a dispersal route, authorities can estimate the fragmentation effect in advance.

This approach brings conservation closer to the logics typical of Big Data Environmental datasets aren't necessarily industrially large, but they are distributed, heterogeneous, and context-sensitive. Photographs, GPS tracks, movement cost models, grazing data, and local observations must be harmonized. The quality of the result depends on the ability to integrate different scales: the burrow, the slope, the valley, the corridor between mountain ranges.

Remote storage becomes social infrastructure

Technology alone does not solve the problem of coexistence. In the mountain landscapes of MongoliaConflict between predators and herders remains a real variable, especially when predation affects domestic animals. Therefore, snow leopard conservation requires monitoring tools, but also trust, communication, and shared management mechanisms.

The Nature Conservancy said it presented its modeling work to about 500 members of community organizations from across the country. Some traveled for days, even on horseback. This detail isn't folkloric: it demonstrates the gap between the technical production of data and its actual use. A map isn't useful because it's accurate, but because it can be read, discussed, and applied by those who live in the landscape it represents.

The case of the Tost Mountains thus offers a broader lesson for conservation policies. camera traps reduce the invisibility of the feline, GPS collars clarify trajectories and territories, the environmental sensors They introduce microclimatic variables, while spatial models help transform isolated observations into planning. However, long-term protection depends on the ability to link these tools to administrative decisions, land-use regulations, and local practices.

From isolated data to truly shared knowledge

The most interesting prospect concerns the evolution from a research project to a knowledge infrastructure. If data collected by different organizations remain separate, their value diminishes. However, if they are organized into interoperable and updatable archives, they can feed better models, test hypotheses about dispersion, identify new critical areas, and improve the assessment of the impacts of roads, railways, or mining activities.

This is where the Mongolian case becomes relevant for innovation. Not because a sensor applied to a rare species is, in itself, an absolute novelty, but because it shows how a remote ecosystem can be made understandable without being trivialized. Effective conservation is not the same as total surveillance: it requires sufficient data, responsible precision, and limits on the disclosure of sensitive locations.

In the Tost Mountains, the Snow leopard It continues to move across a landscape difficult to observe. The difference is that today, every trace can become part of a larger information system: a nighttime photograph, a GPS signal, a temperature recorded in a cave, a map discussed with shepherds. The challenge of the coming years will be to transform this knowledge into decisions capable of maintaining the connection between habitats, communities, and large carnivores, without exposing the very thing we intend to protect.

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