Sable is a mammal animal that belongs to the Kunya family. Its closest relative is the pine marten. Units of representatives of the animal world are able to boast of such nobleness, such elegance and harmony, which has a sable.
Sable (animal): description
The body of males reaches 60 cm in length with a weight of 2 kg. Females are much more elegant, they are inferior to males in size. The sable's body is slightly elongated, short legs, therefore, the back of the animal is always bent. Paws are wide, perfectly adapted to terrestrial life. The animal has a very magnificent tail, whose length reaches 20 cm.
The sable has a triangular head, rather large. The muzzle is slightly pointed, framed by large triangular ears.
The real wealth of this animal is its thick lush fur, which becomes even thicker in winter, covering its claws and paw pads. In summer, the color of the body of the animal is monophonic, dark brown, its paws and tail are slightly darker. In winter, his coat becomes paler. The head stands out in a light shade , a light spot often appears in the throat, which is not observed in the summer.
Due to various color options, the animal has different names: “fur” - the lightest, “head” - black sable, “collar” - intermediate color.
Spread
Sable is an animal (the photo is presented in this article), which lives in the taiga region of Eurasia. The bulk lives in the Far East and in Siberia. In addition, a small number of animals exist in Korea, Mongolia, in the north-eastern part of China, in the north of Hokkaido (Japan).
If in this space the animal used to live in huge numbers, then at the moment, due to intensive fishing, its range has sharply decreased. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the population density was at least 10%. Coniferous taiga is a sable house. The animal never goes beyond its limits. It can be found in dark coniferous forests, where spruce, fir, cedar grows, where it is dark and damp. He chooses inaccessible, cluttered places, covered with stones, moss, branches.
Lifestyle
Sable is a unique animal that leads nomadic and sedentary lifestyles. The beast is tied to a specific area and rarely goes beyond its borders in a lifetime. Forest fires, natural disasters, lack of food, massive deforestation can only make the animal sable, interesting facts about the life of which are given in this article, leave the habitat.
The animal in its area has a large number of temporary shelters and several permanent ones. The latter are divided into winter and brood. It is characteristic of the sable that he himself does not build his houses, but uses natural voids.
He chooses gorges between stones, niches under eversion, hollow in the lying decks or trees. In winter, he makes his way to his nest under the snow. The animal does not hide the burrow, which means that it can be easily found by a huge number of tracks that converge in a common place.
Nutrition
Sable is an almost omnivorous animal. Basically, its food is various rodents, mice, shrews, moles, chipmunks. From time to time he catches a pika between rocks, sometimes he eats squirrels. Big males can even hunt hares. Small passerines (adults, chicks, eggs), black grouse, and partridges can become the food of the animal from birds. Although he hunts them extremely rarely.
Sables that live in the Far East can also eat fish. During spawning, animals go to the banks of rivers, where they pick up dead fish. In the winter season, when it is more difficult to obtain food, the sable feeds on carrion. If a large beast dies, a huge number of these small animals feed on its carrion. Especially for this, they arrange for themselves nearby temporary shelters.
Sable also enjoys honey. Having found the hollow of bees, he will come to him until he completely empties it (larvae, honeycombs, as well as the bees themselves). Although its main food is berries and fruits. He often steals pine nuts from the hollows of other animals; in the winter season, he extracts berries that remain on branches from under the snow (lingonberries, blueberries, cloudberries).
Breeding
Sable is an animal whose fertilization and propagation have been studied by scientists for a long time. Small sables are born in the spring, mainly in April, in the amount of 2-5 individuals. Birth takes place in one of the specially equipped shelters, which the female is lining with moss, wool and hay. The weight of newborns is about 30 g, while they are completely helpless. In a month they begin to distinguish various sounds, and also open their eyes.
Subspecies
There are several subspecies of animals that differ in habitat, fur and color:
- Sayan;
- West Siberian;
- Sakhalin sable;
- Barguzin sable ;
- Yenisei;
- Kamchatka sable.
Fishing
Sable is an animal that is valued for its very thick fur. Such wealth brought the beast a lot of troubles. His skin is very much appreciated. It began to be called "soft gold." Therefore, these animals were constantly hunted. Because of this, its number has decreased significantly.
Hats, fur coats are sewn from his fur. At the same time, the peoples of Siberia did not value sable fur and studded them with skis below. Local hunters tried to keep the livestock. The hunt for him was carried out only once every 3 years, so that the population was restored.
Hunting Methods
Sable is an animal trapped or hunted with likes. In the latter case, the animal is driven into a tree, where it is already being shot. But if the sable hides in the thicket, it is almost impossible to drive him out of there. Then the hunters around this place arrange the net, after which they begin to expel it with a probe. This method of hunting was called a bastard.
Taming the Sable
It should be noted that sable is easy to tame. An animal at home resembles a cat in behavior. This animal very quickly gets used to the owner. At the moment, sables are bred mainly artificially, in fur farms. In captivity, a sable (pet) can live up to 18 years.
Reconstitution
Keeping the number of the animal, attempts were made to breed it in reserves, and then resettled in other territories. This turned out to be a difficult task, since at first it was difficult to get offspring. It was necessary to study the habits of the animal, with a lot of effort.
When planning the reintroduction of the animal, it is necessary to carefully study the territory of its release, and also to check whether he lived there before. Of great importance is the change of scenery (fires, deforestation). After re-production in this area, fishing should be stopped for a while.
To determine the territory for the sable, the presence of a feed base, places for nesting, competitors of the animal and predators are crucial.
Breeding sables in captivity
Some difficulties appear when breeding animals at home. Sable is a moving animal, therefore, it needs a large area for life. The cage needs to be specially equipped: to ensure a reliable deadbolt, enough space, tighten the windows with a metal mesh. The animal is very smart, he can open the castle without difficulty. So that he would not be bored, you can provide plastic toys, because the animal loves to play.