Society

Wolves return to N China's pasture after decades

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-26 11:26

HOHHOT - Temure, a veteran herdsman living on a steppe in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, had only heard of wolves in folk stories until he saw two attack his sheep earlier this month.

"Wolves are coming back. They killed six of my sheep before I drove them away in the early morning," said the 46-year-old Mongolian living on the pastoral lands of Bayannur.

Temure said he had recently heard three other herdsmen in the region had suffered sheep losses from wolf attacks.

Zhang Quanru, head of the Inner Mongolia Wild Life Preservation Center, also confirmed wolves had reappeared in many parts of Inner Mongolia's midwestern regions, where they have not been since the 1980s.

"Wards in a nature reserve in Helan Mountains said they had found a flock of 60 sheep dead with wounds in their throats. The wolves attacked them," said Zhang.

Temure said that police and local herdsmen have teamed up to form volunteered patrols against the wolves to protect children and livestock.

He said many locals have built fences around their sheep pens.

Zhang said people had driven the wolves from grassland for decades.

Back in the 1950s, wolves were considered a "pest" on the grassland. The local government launched a campaign to eradicate them so to protect farm animals.

"People only stopped killing wolves after the promulgation of China's wild life protection law in 1989," he said.

However, the campaign was followed by lingering droughts and over grazing, which led to increasing desertification making the environment intolerable for many wild animals such as wolves, Zhang said.

"Anti-desertification efforts including grazing bans have helped rehabilitate the grassland," he said.