The number of endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys,
unique to China, in one nature reserve in the central province of
Hubei
more than doubled over the past 15 years, Xinhua News Agency
reported today.
Zhong Ran, deputy director of Shennongjia Natural
Reserve Administration said the population had risen from 501 to
over 1,200 in that time and now live in a 10,000-hectare special
zone where no visitors apart from researchers and forest guards are
allowed.
A long-term research program aiming to provide information to help
protect the monkeys was launched in April, said Zhong, and is set
to run for between five and eight years.
Zhong credited the increasing numbers largely to a
shift in the area's development model in the 1990s, when it became
a UNESCO biosphere reserve. At that time, forest coverage had been
cut to only 63.5 percent.
From the 1960s, Shennongjia had contributed timber
from over 100,000 cubic meters per year, during which time the
local ecology was seriously damaged and numbers of wild animals
fell.
The golden snub-nosed monkey, Rhinopithecus
roxellana, is under top state protection, considered a "state
treasure" along with the giant panda.
All three of its subspecies are classified as
"vulnerable" on the World Conservation Unions' Red List, meaning it
is considered to face a high risk of extinction in the wild in the
medium-term due to human-induced habitat loss and degradation.
According to recent surveys, only 10,000 to 15,000
survive in the wild, with the largest populations in southwest
China's Sichuan
Province.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2005)
