SPECIES STORIES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 162

brink of extinction, have been making a modest comeback. 137 So little is known of their
status, however, that it is premature to consider them a success story. However, ibex in
the Tianshan and associated mountain ranges of Xinjiang are, from all accounts, common
and under no great threat; red deer in Xinjiang (although not necessarily elsewhere) are
also reported to be locally common. Goitered gazelles inhabit deserts and semi-arid areas
throughout western Gansu, northern Qinghai, and most of Xinjiang, seemingly under little
pressure. Perhaps because of the weak tradition of hunting, populations of small “game”
species that might be at risk, such as Tibetan wooly hares, appear to fluctuate according
to natural factors rather than being entirely under mankind's thumb. Even Himalayan
marmots, which are subject to massive (if generally illegal) commercial slaughter, seem to
find ways to come back (although admittedly, nobody has monitored their trend). Among
large-bodied “game” birds for which one might reasonably have concern, both Tibetan
and Himalayan snow cocks seem relatively secure in their alpine haunts, and both species
of sand grouse are commonly encountered. Indeed, it is the fact that western China still
possesses so many wild species with a potentially bright future (seen as well in the previ-
ous section on carnivores) that distinguishes it from eastern China and, in part, underlies
my argument for a change in management approach from the current one. Here are three
western Chinese species with which I am familiar that appear to be doing well.
Tibetan Gazelle: Finding a Small Niche
Although closely related to the Przewalski's gazelle that is in such trouble, the Tibetan
gazelle is adapted to the colder climes of the true plateau, grazing on alpine steppe grass-
lands and alpine sedge meadows where human occupation has always been relatively low.
Perhaps equally telling, it consumes mainly dicotyledons (flowering plants, commonly
referred to as forbs) that are of relatively little interest to domestic livestock, and, at least
during the growing season, it avoids grasses and sedges. 138 Its habitats have thus been
only moderately altered by a history of domestic livestock grazing, and its presence is
not seen as a threat by pastoralists. While always of some interest to subsistence hunt-
ers, its small size and dispersed nature have saved it from being the target of intensive
commercial hunting or poaching (and it probably doesn't hurt that the Tibetan gazelle
has no particularly valuable or unique medicinal qualities). Tibetan gazelles are thus in
no particular trouble.
These diminutive gazelles have a distinctively large and furry white rump patch (a
common local name for the animal, used in both Chinese and Kazak languages, is “white
behind”), and their small group size, nervous temperament, and bounding gait gives them
the air of being a bunny rabbit among ungulates, hardly a threatening image. Male Tibetan
gazelles stake out breeding territories, often on bare ridges with poor forage, which they
signal with small latrines. Thus during fall, males distribute themselves spatially in order to
distinguish their territories from those of their competitors (and during summer, subadult
males often seem interested in “defending” these sites as well, strutting around making
themselves seem masculine and sexy, evidently unaware that females are usually far away,
feeding in wet meadows at higher elevations, and, in any case, uninterested). Females and