On today’s show we learn about the Dahl’s Jird, a critically endangered mammal native to the border region of Turkey and Armenia in Eastern Anatolia, specifically the Iğdır province in Turkey.
Rough Transcript
Intro 00:05
Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.
On today’s show we consider the Dahl’s Jird.
Species Information 02:05
The Dahl’s Jird is a critically endangered mammal native to the border region of Turkey and Armenia in Eastern Anatolia, specifically the Iğdır province in Turkey.
Appearance
The Dahl’s Jird, is a small rodent in the gerbil family, whose body measures roughly 5 inches with a roughly equal length tail. So 10 inches total, whiskers to tail tip. They weigh between 2-3 ounces, roughly the weight of the delicate porcelain teacup. If you are not yet imagining a gerbil in a fine china cup, please do so now.
The Dahl’s Jird has an egg-shaped head, very large dark-colored eyes, moderately sized oblong ears, and a short rounded whiskered snout. Their hind limbs are noticeably larger and stronger than the forelimbs. Five toes on the hindlimbs, four toes on the forelimbs all with small claws.
The fur of the Dahl’s Jird is a pale sandy light tan color on their back, transitioning to a lighter, creamy white or pale grey on the belly. The fur is soft and dense.
Their tail is long. It is, as mentioned, approximately equal in length to the body and covered in short, fine tan hairs with a tuft of longer darker hairs at the tip. This tail is an adaptation for balance and agility, used for stabilization when standing or digging, and when in motion, as a kind of counterweight, helping the Jird maintain balance during quick turns, and jumps.
The Dahl’s Jird, like some mice, hamster and other gerbil, has specialized cheek pouches used for transporting food. So this is like a flexible folded up inner lining of the cheek which can then unfold and be expanded. The Jird can quickly gather seeds, grains, grasses and stuff them into these pouches. So they can collect a large amount of food in a short period, to transport to their burrow, a safe place to eat, or to store the food for later.
The Dahl’s Jird primarily eats plant material, seeds, leaves and stems of Barberry, buckwheat, and steppe grass, fruit when available, and though primarily herbivorous, it may occasionally consume insects as well.
The Jird is nocturnal, meaning most active at night, foraging after sunset to avoid the day’s heat and reduce risk of predation. They quickly gather food, storing in their cheeks, transporting it to a safe location, minimizing time spent exposed in the open.
They have dexterous forepaws, used to manipulate food items, for example holding a seed and using their teeth to remove the shell, to get at the nutrient-rich kernel inside.
They are both scatter and larder hoarders. Scatter hoarding means they create numerous small caches of food throughout their territory. Larder hoarding means store food in specific locations within their burrows.
Their burrows are dug in sandy soils, with a few entrances masked by vegetation, so like under shrub or groundcover, providing concealment and whose root systems may provide some stability to the loose soil. The burrows have a relatively simpler structure, with a single main tunnel holding nesting chambers, food storage chambers and connecting entrances. Burrows can reach over 20 feet in length and are dug up to 6 feet deep.
Unlike some gerbil species that live in large multi-family burrow colonies, the Dahl’s Jird is relatively solitary. Single individuals, or just a small family unit of mother and offspring inhabit a burrow.
During breeding season, a male and female may temporarily share a burrow for mating and raising young. But the Dahl’s Jird does not form longterm mating pairs and the male will leave after mating, or after the young are born.
Litters range from 2-7 young, and a mother can breed and birth up to 3 times a year. Reproduction starts at the end of March, and gestation is only roughly 20 days. The young, called pups, are born altricial meaning they rely on their mother’s care for survival, born hairless and blind. The mother raises offspring on her own and once the young reach independence, they disperse from the burrow to establish their own territories and new burrows.
The Dahl’s Jird is native to the border region of Turkey and Armenia in Eastern Anatolia, specifically the Iğdır province in Turkey, north of Mount Ararat, on the arid Iğdır Plain.
This is a semi-desert region of low rolling hills and plains of sandy soils with sparse vegetation, drought-resistant shrubs and grasses. The landscape is bisected by dry riverbeds that only carry water after infrequent heavy rains. Summer high temperatures crest into the 100s°F and winter lows drop into the teens (°f). Precipitation is low with an annual rainfall typically ranging from 4 to 12 inches.
A 2022 study found that the Dahl’s Jird’s range was restricted to sandy plains at roughly half a mile elevation and only in the presence of Phog shrub. That is P H O G. The study determined that Phog shrub seeds comprised 70-80 percent of the Jird’s winter food reserves. So heavily reliant on this plant species that grows across the Iğdır Plain.
The Dahl’s Jird also shares the Iğdır Plain with:
Red Fox, Long-Legged Buzzard, Feather Grass, Blind Mole Rat, Phog Shrub, Wild Boar, Tristram’s Jird, Macedonian Mouse, Least Weasel, Bluegrass, European Badger, Saltwort, Long-Eared Hedgehog, Armenian Grape Hyacinth, Common Kestrel, House Mouse, Barn Owl, Small-flowered Catmint, Barberry, European Hare, Vinogradov’s Jird, Gray Wolf, Beech Marten, Fernleaf Yarrow, Milk-Vetch, Migratory Hamster, Little Owl, and many, many more.
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In the dream, digging, tunneling, delving, shifting, shoveling, excavating downward, onward, deeper and deeper into sandy darkness, burrowing and burrowing and burrowing. Nowhere now is quite safe from the rumbling.
In the dream.
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The Dahl’s Jird population has been dramatically reduced by anthropogenic activities including unsustainable agricultural practices like livestock overgrazing and habitat conversion to cropland. As well as the almost total clear-cutting of the Phog shrub for firewood.
Other extractive anthropogenic activities threaten the Jird. Industrial sand extraction is reducing viable habitat and heavy vehicle transport to nearby quarries causes strong vibration of the sandy soil, damaging and destroying Jird burrows.
Human induced climate change is an imminent threat. This already arid rugged ecoregion will likely see shifts in weather patterns, and increasing frequency and severity of drought as continued fossil fuel use results in global temperature rise.
Some portions of the Dahl’s Jird habitat fall under protected lands but otherwise at present, there seem to be no conservation efforts focused on protecting the species.
The Dahl’s Jird has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2021 and their population is currently in decline. Our most recent counts estimate that less than 1600 Dahl’s Jird remain in the wild.
Citations 19:16
Information for today’s show about the Dahl’s Jird was compiled from:
Animal Diversity Web (University of Michigan). “Gerbillinae”. Poor, A. 2005. – https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Gerbillinae/
Biodiversity and Conservation. Vol 25. “An overview of biodiversity and conservation status of steppes of the Anatolian Biogeographical Region.” Ambarlı, Didem & Zeydanlı, Uğur & Balkız, Özge & Aslan, Serdar & Karacetin, Evrim & Sözen, Mustafa & Ilgaz, Çetin & Gürsoy Ergen, Arzu & Lise, Yildiray & Demirbas, Semiha & Welch, Hilary & Welch, Geoff & Turak, Ayşe & Bilgin, Can & Özkil, Aydan & Vural, Mecit. (2016). – http://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1172-0
Brazilian Journal of Biology. Vol. 82. “The present status, distribution, demography, and diet of the Dahl’s Jird.”
Bulut, Şafak. (2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.237849
CEPF, WWF. “Status and Protection of Globally Threatened Species in the Caucasus” Report. Zazanashvili, N. and Mallon, D. (Editors) 2009 pg.111. Tbilisi: Contour Ltd. – https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?185301/New-publication-based-on-CEPF-supported-studies
Conference presentation: 6th International Conference of Rodent Biology and Management. “Recent information on population status of Meriones dahli that is close to extinction in the Middle East”. Bulut, Şafak & Akbaba, Burak & Doğan, Murat & Ulusoy, Kadir & Karataş, Ahmet. (2018). – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352982807_Recent_information_on_population_status_of_Meriones_dahli_that_is_close_to_extinction_in_the_Middle_East
IUCN – https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/13162/22433617
Journal of Mammalogy, Volume 100, Issue 1, 28 February 2019, Pages 55–71. “The species diversity, distribution, and conservation status of the terrestrial mammals of Iran,” Gholam Hosein Yusefi, Kaveh Faizolahi, Jamshid Darvish, Kamran Safi, José Carlos Brito – https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyz002
United States Agency of International Development “Map of Land Use in the Ararat Valley” – https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Ararat_Valley_Landcover_ENG.jpg
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahl%27s_jird
Music 21:05
Pledge 27:38
I honor the lifeforce of the Dahl’s Jird. I will commit its name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.
And so, in the name of the Dahl’s Jird I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments.
I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.
