Birds and mammals of the Chagan-Burgazy river basin of Saylyugemsky National Park in south-eastern Altai

The article presents the summarized results of the state environmental monitoring of camera trap operation in Saylyugemsky National Park for eight months (March - October 2024). The species diversity of the mammal class and the bird class shows the specificity of wildlife in the Chagan-Burgazy River basin. Over the entire observation period we have registered 21 species (analyzed 873 video frames of 7 camera traps during 502 trap-days). The class of mammals includes 12 species, the most representative of them are Carnivora order - 7 species, Artiodactyla order - 2 species, Rodents order - 2 species, Lagomorpha order - 1 species. The bird class includes 9 species: Passeriformes order - 7 species, Falconiformes order - 1 species, Galliformes order - 1 species. It has been established that the habitat of 5 species listed in the Red Book of the Altai Republic [2017] is 24 % of the total number of species in the Saylyugem cluster. The leaders in terms of registration on camera traps among mammals are 5 species: the Siberian ibex, Argali, Snow leopard, Pallas's cat and Tolai hare, among birds - 3 species: the Isabelline wheatear, Guldenstadt's redstart and Altai Snowcock. We have noted a high frequency of snow leopard passages - 15 registrations: 8 - in the Shen-Ozy tract, 5 - at the headwaters of the Sarzhemata River. The peak of the species’ activity has been observed in the autumn period (October - 9 passages, 60 % of the total), and to a lesser extent, in the summer period (July - 4 passages, August - 2 passages respectively). The food supply of the Snow leopard is assessed as sufficient, its food items are Argali, Siberian ibex and Marmot.