Encounters with the Chinese Mountain Cat (and other nocturnal mammals) on the Tibetan Plateau in China

No sooner had we turned off the main road south of Ruoergai on the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan and turned on the spotlights to scan the grasslands than a Chinese Mountain Cat was spotted by its eye shine. It was a good distance away but our track and its path were converging. Then the cat turned towards us as it hunted for rodents and I was able to take some video footage by torchlight. My camera was at the limit and the footage at these very low light levels is grainy but the salient features of this little-known cat that we could see through binoculars can just be discerned.

The late evening turned out to be one of those night-spotting classics that make spotlighting or lamping such a worthwhile experience. None of the mammals were close enough to be filmed but all could be seen through binoculars. After that Mountain Cat (Felis bieti) we saw another two plus Woolly Hares (Lepus oiostolus), a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), an Asian Badger (Meles leucurus), a Steppe Polecat (Mustela eversmannii) which was searching pika burrows for prey but then disappeared from view, and three Wolves (Canis lupus). The wolves were stopping, listening and then moving on to stop and listen again. Domestic yak herds are kept on the grasslands and it is hardly surprising that the yak herders have the enormous and fierce Tibetan Mastiff as guard dogs.

The following night Tibetan Foxes (Vulpes ferrilata) abounded; we saw ten, as well as a Mountain Cat and a Red Fox. On a final night it was Red Foxes, six this time, a Mountain Cat and an Asian Badger.

It was the density of the predators that surprised us, especially the numbers of Tibetan and Red Foxes in a relatively small area. The grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau are really productive in terms of producing large rodent and lagomorph populations which together with the odd dead yak must provide rich pickings for the carnivores.

I will return to the Chinese Mountain Cat in a later post.