SPECIES STORIES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 167

hoc sampling is always poor science, blue sheep, unlike argali or wild yak, appear to be
thriving in the numerous mountains where they earlier might only have been assumed
or reported to exist. Officially, China considers that it harbors almost half a million blue
sheep, which is almost certainly a wild overestimate. 152 But even if the true population
is only one-third or one-quarter of this number, the species remains numerous and in no
danger.
It was not always this way. In the early 1960s, extrapolations from shaky surveys sug-
gested that Qinghai alone might have had well over a million blue sheep. 153 Such breathless
(and poorly documented) reports no doubt combined with the prevailing Maoist impera-
tive to exploit nature for mankind's use to prompt a government-run commercial harvest,
which provided meat both domestically and internationally (mostly to Germany). From
the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, blue sheep (as well as Tibetan and goitered gazelles)
were subject to commercial hunting in Qinghai, in which production was measured in tons
rather than number of animals; almost 3,600 tons of meat were sold during the 1965-79
period, and an additional 1,100 during the 1980-86 period, most of which consisted of
blue sheep. Near as can be determined, no surveys or studies were conducted to judge
the sustainability of such a hunt, and bags were limited only by the ability of hunters to
kill the animals. By the mid-1980s, it had become clear that even the seemingly limitless
blue sheep population was suffering under the assault, and the commercial harvest was
ended (and, as had been planned, replaced by the considerably more conservative trophy
hunt). In retrospect, it seems odd that, even in the closed-off People's Republic of those
decades, an uncontrolled commercial slaughter of wildlife could have been condoned,
but it becomes easier to understand when remembering that it was really believed there
were over a million animals within just a few mountain ranges.
Once the massive killing stopped, however, blue sheep were able to respond. Without
doubt, small-scale subsistence hunting continued until the confiscation of guns in the late
1990s. But given the poor weaponry, blue sheep subsistence harvests were almost certainly
modest. Although most all pastoralists enjoy their meat, blue sheep, at a total weight of
about 35 kilograms for females and 50 kilograms for males, represent a small reward
for the effort of trekking into their vertical world. Equally important in their recovery,
however, is the fact that surprisingly large populations of these small-bodied goats can
be supported entirely within high-elevation, steep, or excessively rough/rocky terrain that
is used sparingly if at all by domestic livestock. Both domestic sheep/goat herds and yak
herds are often herded to within proximity of blue sheep, and in specific situations there
may be conflicts. In general, however, it appears that even relatively intensive livestock
grazing does not preclude having healthy populations of blue sheep. Safely above the
tumult, blue sheep look down upon ever-expanding, ever-developing China, careless of
whether or not they live within a nature reserve, a designated hunting area, or simply
a livestock production zone. They provide an opportunity for a wide array of possible
management approaches in the future.