SPECIES STORIES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 127

Figure 7.1 Historical and present distribution of Przewalski's gazelle.
on the vast steppe (where people and their livestock were widely separated from each
other), nor on the uninhabitable deserts, the Przewalski's gazelle appears always to have
occupied the hidden corners, the cracks and crevices separating habitats either too severe
or too densely peopled. And as those places became increasingly populated, the corners
too small and the cracks and crevices filled in, the gazelle was left with only the environs
of Qinghai Lake for a final refuge, just far enough away from the intensive grazing and
agriculture of lower-down lands to give it some space, not quite so far away as to require
it to become the plains, desert, or alpine specialist of its taxonomic cousins (all of which
have fared considerably better). 31 The Hexi Corridor of Gansu has long been converted
largely to agriculture, and compact Ningxia, with an area of only about 66,000 km 2 , now
has an estimated population of almost 6 million. Recent population increases in Inner
Mongolia have been even more dramatic, with a huge upsurge of immigration evidently
beginning in the 1930s and continuing until recently (see Figure 7.2). Because we cannot
specify exactly the historic range of the gazelle, we cannot quantify the anthropogenic
changes in its habitat, but it is clear that humans are now up to an order of magnitude
more numerous than they were only 150 years ago.
It is unlikely that the Przewalski's gazelle found itself without adequate food in its
former range. There is, of course, overlap in diet between this small gazelle and the do-
mestic sheep and goats that now live where it used to, but it is also likely that this mixed
feeder could usually find sufficient quantities of dicotyledons and shrubs of lesser interest
to sheep and goats. 32 Rather, the species appears to be intolerant of people and their live-