500 Tögrög Saker falcon

The saker falcon holds particular significance in Mongolian culture — it was the preferred hunting bird of Chinggis Khan's court and remains central to the nomadic falconry tradition that UNESCO added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2016. Mongolia has been an active participant in saker conservation efforts, as wild populations across the Central Asian steppe collapsed sharply in the 1990s due to illegal trapping for the Gulf falconry market.