Current view: Text account
Site description (2006 baseline):
Site location and context
IBA is in administrative Atbash region of Nari oblast (region), 40 km south of village At-Bash. This gorge is western part of Atbash mountain range. In former times it was part of the famous Silk Road to China. High in the mountains is situated an old shelter for strangers, historic monument Tash-Rabat. Modern highway to China is laid to the west, skirting Atbash mountain range.
IBA is a gorge 15-18 km length, stretched from north-west to south-east. In the 3-4 km of the entrance gorge are greatly narrowed and rocky outlets formatting steep, sometimes sheer rocks. Spruce forest on the slopes isn’t dense, higher is goes into creeping juniper. At the top gorge widens, forming small, closed by winds, almost forestless hollows in width about one km.
Mountain ecosystem of the Central Tian-Shan is very peculiar: biotic component is formed from elements of Himalaya, Siberia and the local fauna. So here is possible to use “biome-restricted” criterion.First of all IBA is very important to conserve raptors, whose numbers are still holding at the high level.
Non-bird biodiversity: IBA is also home to Snow Leopard, Lynx, Bear, Wolf, Argali, Roe and a high number Altai Marmot.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
The most tangible threat is poaching and trapping of raptors and destruction of nests, also logging (B) and selective logging (B)
Data-sheet compiled on 15-Mar-2006 by V. I. Toropova, received by BirdLife Cambridge May 2008, translated by Tsovinar Hovhannisyan in summer 2010, entered into WBDB by Rory McCann in autumn 2010.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Gorge Tash-Rabat (Kyrgyzstan). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/gorge-tash-rabat-iba-kyrgyzstan on 22/11/2024.
