“Around 3:30 PM, we encountered a weasel, also known as ‘arys chychkan.’ It was an astonishing sight: it grabbed a rat and swiftly ran past us,” witnesses shared their impressions.
In Kyrgyzstan, there lives a mountain subspecies of the weasel, which is characterized by light brown fur in the summer and medium size compared to other subspecies found across the former Soviet Union. This predator inhabits a wide variety of landscapes—from plains to high mountains—but its population is distributed extremely unevenly.
In most regions, the population of the weasel is significantly lower than that of the stoat, and only in some places can it prevail.
The population density of the weasel and stoat directly depends on the number of stone martens. Similar to the sable in Siberia, this predator influences the population of small mustelids, reducing their numbers in its range.
The weasel prefers open spaces, unlike the stoat. Its diet mainly consists of mouse-like rodents and moles, as well as, less frequently, other small vertebrates. In Northern Kyrgyzstan, young weasels reach nearly adult size by the end of June and begin to lead an independent life, indicating that they are born in April.
The reproduction of the weasel occurs more slowly than that of the stoat: a litter consists of 4 to 7 offspring.
