SPECIES STORIES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 134

relatively heavy densities throughout argali distribution, both within and outside of des-
ignated nature reserves, and both within and outside of designated international hunting
areas. Of course, pastoralists have lived in the same mountains as argali for centuries,
and, as noted in Chapter 2, the recent Chinese publicity about grassland degradation or
destruction is often simplistic and exaggerated. However, the recent trend toward seden-
tarization of pastoralists, combined with continued market pressures toward short-term
profits associated with large herd sizes, portends trouble for argali. Chinese officials
continue to focus on mortality management while imminent threats to the argali's already
restricted habitat are ignored.
In Yanchiwan Township, in Gansu's Subei County, where argali hunting began and
where the Chinese consider one of the healthiest argali populations to be, an American
hunter recently phoned me to express horror at the habitat conditions caused by the large
number of livestock. In adjacent Jianshe Township in Aksai County, our work concluded
that domestic sheep densities and pastoral practices were unsustainable and no doubt lim-
ited argali to a fraction of the number that might otherwise be supported. 48 Although we
do not know the population trend of argali there, removal of all guns and the absence of
any known poaching during 2000-2003 failed to produce any obvious increase in argali
numbers, suggesting that habitats or competition, rather than hunting, were limiting. (We
documented fewer argali in 2003 than 2000, but survey limitations precluded us from
concluding a true decline had occurred.)
In part, domestic sheep compete with argali for forage resources. But perhaps even
more importantly, domestic sheep (with their attendant herders, horses, and sometimes
dogs) appear to displace argali from otherwise preferred foraging areas, relegating
the wild sheep to dry, cold ridges that pastoralists don't bother herding their domestic
sheep to. In Jianshe, my colleagues and I documented pastoralists continually displac-
ing argali as they moved their herds seasonally to different grazing areas (see Figure
7.3). 49 Although we phrased it somewhat less succinctly, a Kazak friend of mine put
it best when he snapped his fingers, telling me, “When the pastoralists move in, the
argali move out.” Similarly, near Arjin Mountain, where Gansu abuts Qinghai and
Xinjiang, KIHA staff and I were pleasantly surprised to observe 116 argali during an
excruciatingly bumpy and slow jeep drive through only about 50 kilometers in August
1997. Habitats there were extremely arid and stony, almost entirely devoid of grasses
and sedges, and we found ourselves puzzled by why argali density appeared so high.
Toward the end of the second day, when we began descending the western slopes,
grasses suddenly appeared in lush abundance, but we ceased finding argali. The seem-
ing anomaly could best be explained by the complete lack of domestic livestock in the
arid areas, and the high density of livestock where moisture allowed for lush pastures.
In Yeniugou, Qinghai, our surveys suggested that argali had declined from the early
1990s to 2002, again despite any evidence of poaching or disease. Here, livestock
numbers remained approximately constant and grassland conditions declined only
gradually (see Chapter 2), but in contrast to the situation in the early 1990s, pastoral
camps had by 2002 become increasingly fixed in the very areas favored by argali (in
both summer and winter), and argali had evidently forsaken these productive areas for