Workers of Hoh Xil Nature Reserve Administration prepare to burn Tibetan antelope hides confiscated from poachers in Golmud, in northwest China's Qinghai province, October 22, 2009. [Xinhua]

Animal protection authorities in northwest China's Qinghai Province Thursday destroyed 2,282 Tibetan antelope hides confiscated from poachers to show resolution against killing of the rare species.

"The hides were seized from poachers over the past ten years," said Cedain Zhou, director of the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve Administration. "We want to show our unswerving attitude in combating poaching."

He said the move had been the largest of its kind since 1998 when China began coming down hard on armed poachers in the region.

Over the past decade, more than 4,000 Tibetan antelope skins have been confiscated by the administration.

Tibetan antelopes were targeted by poachers because they produce the finest wool in the world, known as shahtoosh, a Persian word meaning "king of wool".

A policeman and an official of Hoh Xil Nature Reserve Administration set fire to Tibetan antelope hides confiscated from poachers in Golmud, in northwest China's Qinghai province, October 22, 2009. [Xinhua]

Each down hair of the Tibetan antelope is around six times thinner than the average human hair.

A shahtoosh shawl, incredibly lightweight and warm, takes the wool from three to four antelopes, and may fetch up to 11,000 U.S. dollars on the global market.

Beginning in the late 1980s, shahtoosh shawls became a high fashion in Europe and the United States which fueled a black market and led to a slump in the population of Tibetan antelopes from 200,000 to 20,000 in 1997.

Although hunting and the selling of Shahtoosh were stringently prohibited, poaching still prevailed in the Hoh Xil.

To curb the rampant slaughter of Tibetan antelopes, and save them from extinction, the Chinese government set up the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in 1995, and upgraded it to a state-listed reserve in 1997.

The Nature Reserve, in the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, covers 45,000-sq km with an average altitude of 4,600 meters.

Thanks to the country's anti-poaching efforts, no armed poaching has been reported since 2006 in Hoh Xil and the population of Tibetan antelope in this region has grown to around 60,000, Cedain Zhou said.

"As long as the illegal trading and consumption of Tibetan antelope fur exist, there will be a long way ahead in protecting the species," he said.

Tibetan antelopes have been given the highest level of protection under the United Nations' Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species since 1979, and listed among the most endangered species by the Chinese government since 1988.