“Around 3:30 PM, we encountered a weasel, known locally as ‘arys chychkan.’ It was truly an amazing sight when it grabbed a rat with its teeth and quickly disappeared from view,” witnesses reported.
The territory of Kyrgyzstan is home to the mountain Turkestan subspecies of weasel, which is characterized by a medium body size and light brown fur in the summer. This predator can be found in various landscapes, from plains to high mountains, but its population is distributed extremely unevenly across regions.
In most areas, the weasel is not as common as the stoat, and only in certain places does its population exceed that of the stoat.
The populations of both the weasel and the stoat are directly dependent on the density of the stone marten population, which, like the sable in Siberia, affects the numbers of small mustelids, reducing their population in its habitat.
The weasel prefers open spaces, unlike the stoat. Its diet mainly consists of mouse-like rodents and moles, although it sometimes hunts other small vertebrates. In Northern Kyrgyzstan, young weasels reach nearly adult size by the end of June, indicating that they are born in April.
The reproduction of the weasel occurs more slowly compared to the stoat, and a typical litter usually consists of 4 to 7 offspring.
