Panda protection effort aids other rare wildlife

CHENGDU－Over the past summer season, snow leopards were photographed by five different infrared cameras in Pingwu county, Sichuan province, at an altitude of about 4,200 meters, surprising many wildlife scientists.

The footage confirmed that the distribution of the predator in China's southwestern mountains has expanded eastward, says Yang Yi, a senior communications officer of the World Wildlife Fund.

Pingwu in northern Sichuan is famous for being home to a large number of wild giant pandas. The fourth national survey of giant pandas in 2015 found that there were 1,864 wild giant pandas in China, including 335 in Pingwu.

As a result, over half of Pingwu's land area has been demarcated into the Giant Panda National Park, which has a planned area of 22,000 square kilometers across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. It is among five national parks China designated in October, after a four-year trial run.

Through shutting down mines, restoring vegetation, banning poaching and other measures, protection efforts in the park have not only made wild giant pandas less endangered, but are turning the region into a sanctuary for other rare species.

Some 87 percent of the Giant Panda National Park lies within Sichuan, inhabited by more than 8,000 species of animals and plants, such as red pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys, forming one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

The province has utilized infrared cameras, satellites, drones, as well as ranger patrols, to form an integrated protection system.

Thousands of rangers have been working year-round on more than 900 patrol routes. Over the past four years, they have had some 1,600 encounters with rare animals.

"In Pingwu county alone, more than 4,100 species of plants and 1,900 species of animals have benefited from the protection of giant pandas," says Jiang Shiwei, head of the forestry and grassland bureau of the county.

For example, the number of takin (Budorcas taxicolor), a rare goat-like bovid that originated in the Himalayan forests, under the country's top-level protection, has increased by about 10 percent over the past decade in the county, says Jiang.

"The protection of giant pandas benefits the whole ecosystem. In addition to providing products to humans, an ecosystem also has supporting, cleaning and other functions that are vital for the sustainable development of human society," says Zhang Qian, a staff member of the wildlife protection office of the Sichuan Bureau of Forestry and Grassland.

Xinhua