L060107 Monitoring and Conservation of Tibetan Antelopes and Other
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Final Report L060107 Monitoring and Conservation of Tibetan Antelopes and Other Mid-large Sized Mammals Along Qinghai-Tibet Railway and Highway Host Country:China Site Location: Hoh-xil National Nature Reserve, Qinghai Province, China Dates in the field: 1st May, 2007 - 1stMarch, 2010 Institutions: Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing Management Office of Hoh-xil National Nature Reserve, Qinghai Authors:Lin Xia, Qian Zhang, Yonghua Wu, Yongjie Wu, Lei Zhu, Long Zhu, Ge Lai,Yongbo Li Contact address: 1 Beichen West Road, Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China. E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ioz.ac.cn 30th September, 2010 Table of Contents Section 1 ....................................................................................................................................5 1.1 Summary ...........................................................................................................................5 1.2 Introduction .......................................................................................................................5 1.3 Project members................................................................................................................8 Section 2:.................................................................................................................................11 2.1 Aim and objectives..........................................................................................................11 2.1.1Main Aim ............................................................................................................................ 11 2.1.2 Objectives: ......................................................................................................................... 11 2. 2 Methodology ..................................................................................................................12 2.2.1 Training..............................................................................................................................12 2.2.2 Field Monitoring ................................................................................................................12 2.2.2.1 Occurrences of chiru and other mid-large mammals along the rail line. .................... 12 2.2.2.2 Impact of the railway and highway on chiru migration .............................................. 12 2.2.2.3 Efficiency of rail crossing structures........................................................................... 13 2.3 Outputs and Results.........................................................................................................14 2.3.1Ecological Output ...............................................................................................................14 2.3.1.1 Disturbances caused by the transportation facility are identified................................ 14 2.3.1.2 The efficiency of wildlife corridors is evaluated......................................................... 16 2.3.1.3: The monitoring of migration of Tibetan Antelopes is continued and improved. ....... 18 2.3.2 Social science output..........................................................................................................19 2.4 Achievements and Impacts..............................................................................................21 Section 3:.................................................................................................................................22 3.1 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................22 3.2 Problems encountered and lessons learnt........................................................................23 3.3 In the future..................................................................................................................24 2 Section 4:.................................................................................................................................26 4.1 Appendices......................................................................................................................26 4.1.1A full account of income and expenditure. .........................................................................26 4.1.2Raw field data: ....................................................................................................................28 4.1.3Copies of any newspaper/magazine articles relating to the project. ...................................31 4.1.4 Papers published or manuscripts proposed based on project data......................................33 4.2 Bibliography....................................................................................................................34 4. 3 Address list and web links..............................................................................................47 4. 4 Distribution list...............................................................................................................49 4.5 Copies of any media articles relating to the project ....................................................50 3 Acknowledgements I would first and foremost like to thank Qisen Yang, advisor of this project, he gave us fully support and worked with us from the beginning to the end. His abundant field experience on Plateau helped us solve many problems in monitoring and improve our project. I would also like to thank Mr. Gama Chaidan, Wenga ,Long Zhu , Suoang Gelai and Wenxiu, their conservation station is “our home” in Hoh-xil. And we worked and lived like a family. Mr. Li Yongbo, staff of Bureau of Forestry of Qinghai Province, without his help in communication we could not work smoothly in the Reserve. Mr. Da zhihua, staff of Ministry of Railway (MOR), helping in communication with Department of the Railway, setting the working sites, providing us with basic working conditions. All of these individuals made this research possible and I am indebted to them. Finally, thanks to our “old friend” Robyn Dalzen, Lynn Duda, Stuart Paterson, Kiragu Mwangi, Julie Jackson and the whole CLP family, without you without this project, and in the past 5 years the CLP gaved us much more than “money”, this project led us to the conservation world and helped us standing on the starting point of our conservation career. 4 Section 1 1.1 Summary The Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the accompanied Golmud-Lhasa highway went through three national nature reserves and cut cross the migration route of the Tibetan Antelopes. This project aims to reduce the disturbance to migration of Tibetan Antelopes and movements of some large mammals along railway and highway by assessing the impact of traffic. The field monitoring has continued for 3 years after the railway being put into operation in 2006 on to the present. Monitoring results show that the disturbance to movements of animals included barrier effect of the line structure, human activities, road traffic and so on. Animals were much disturbed in the rail construction period, but they readily adapted to the crossing structures after the railway being put into operation, the efficiency of wildlife passages have greatly improved in chiru migration from 56.06% to 100%. The Effectiveness of crossing structures was influenced by its location, structural parameters of passages, approaches to the structures, and human activities. Rail operation have little impact on wildlife movement but chiru migration was greatly affected by the busy traffic and the human activities brought by highway, the successful chiru passes have a negative correlation with the traffic volume on the highway. Field monitoring results were analysied combined with the data we collected in rail construction period during 2004-2006 , a detail final report and conservation recommendations were submitted to the local government and transportation department for making further conservation plan. 1.2 Introduction Linear infrastructures such as roadways and railroads, affect populations in numerous ways from habitat loss and fragmentation to constituting physical barriers to movements and dispersion of terrestrial vertebrates (Oxley et al., 1974; Beckmann et.al, 2010; Walker et al., 2003). With the continuing expanding road and rail system in western China, the conflicts between transportation and wildlife conservation become more and more acute. In July 2006, the newly built Qinghai-Tibet railway was put into use,accompanied with the existing Gumold-Lasha highway. 5 The highway and the rail road went through Hoh-xil, Sanjiangyuan, Qiangtang and Selincuo four national nature reserves, which are the main habitats for tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), tibetan wild ass (Equus kiang), wild yaks(Bos grunniens), tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata) , and etc, most of them are endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plaetau and under protection of Chinese government. The Tibetan Antelope is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List, and the wild ass is listed as Vulnerable ( VU). The railroad and highway bisected the migration corridor of one main chiru migratory population at the boundary of Hoh-xil and Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve and also affected the movements of other mid-large mammals. Long-distance seasonal migration is one of the main characteristics of chiru ecology and reproduction. Recent research indicated that chiru migration played an important role in maintaining the gene flow between current isolated geographic