They cited new research as a warning that if illegal hunting persists, the highly-endangered species could disappear from the Earth in a short period.

Over the past five years, a group of Chinese and American researching the antelope's birthing and breeding behaviors have discovered that the stability of the Tibetan antelope population has been seriously undermined as many adult female antelopes have been killed.

Pregnant antelopes run a higher risk of being hunted because they travel in large groups along routine paths to give birth in certain areas each year, thus becoming easy targets for poachers.

The researchers found in the 1998-1999 period, when the poaching was rampant, the percentage of pregnant females dropped to below 30 percent.

At the same time an average of 20,000 antelopes, or more than 30 percent of the estimated total, were slaughtered annually.

Chinese wildlife protection authorities and the police have launched anti-poaching campaigns and patrols in the antelopes' major habitats since 1999, arresting poachers and confiscating a large number of antelope hides.

However, officials acknowledged that poaching is still far from being eradicated in China because of the international fashion trade in "shahtoosh," the fine and soft shawl made from the antelope's wool.

A single shahtoosh shawl, priced at some 18,000 US dollars in Western countries, is reportedly made at the cost of three to five antelopes' lives.

"As long as huge profits exist, poachers will risk danger in order to kill antelopes," said Wang Dehui, an official with the Department of Nature Environmental Conservation, which is under the State Environmental Protection Administration.

Tibetan antelopes are long-term residents on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau in west China. The population has dropped from several millions to below 70,000 in the past two decades due to extensive poaching and the damage of the animals' habitat in the wake of gold rush.

"If the poaching is not stopped promptly, Tibetan antelopes could very possibly be extinct in near future," said Prof. Li Weidong at the Xinjiang Research Institute of Environmental Protection, a major participant of the research.

China has designated as a national nature reserve for Tibetan antelopes, 600,000 square kilometers (231,600 square miles) of the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau composed of the Hoh Xil area in Qinghai Province, the Qiangtang area in Tibet Autonomous Region, and the Altun Mountain area in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

During a recent symposium on antelope protection, officials from the three nature reserves agreed to establish a joint anti-poaching mechanism in order to improve the efficiency of law enforcement.

Battles against the poaching have aroused public awareness across China. An increasing number of non-governmental organizations and volunteers provide support to the protection work by various means, said Hu Jia of the TAIC.org, a website publishing the information of antelope protection.

China's efforts to protect antelopes have also won wide support from the international community, said Fan Zhiyong, an official with China's state office for management of imports and exports of endangered species.

The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has promised to back China in crackdowns on poaching and illegal deals, Fan said.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), one of the world's largest animal welfare organizations, launched a global campaign for antelope protection in 1999. They disclosed the truth of slaughters behind the shahtoosh business and urged fashion circles to stop the use of antelope wool.

As the first international organization aiding China in the protection work, the IFAW has donated about 300,000-dollar-worth communication and transportation facilities to the patrol teams of the nature reserves, as well as educational materials, according to the IFAW's Beijing office.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2002)