Five years after SARS and the specter of the masked palm civet have faded from China's collective consciousness, consumption of wildlife – including threatened and endangered species – is back on the rise, according to a report released last week by the international wildlife trade monitoring organization Traffic.

The report, "The State of Wildlife Trade in China", concluded that medicinal plant and animal populations were under threat from widespread habitat loss combined with 10 percent annual growth of the Traditional Chinese Medicine market. Between 15 and 20 percent of medicinal plants and animals are now endangered, according to the report.

Kunming and five other cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Harbin and Chengdu – were the subjects of consumer attitude surveys conducted by Traffic in 2007. The report found that the belief that wild animals in particular were unpolluted and special, serving as an emotional motivator for consuming wildlife, while the nourishing and tonic aspects of wild animals served as a 'functional' motivator.

Forty-four percent of respondents of the survey, conducted from December 2007 to February 2008, said they had consumed wildlife within the previous 12 months. Within this group, 36 percent said they had consumed wildlife as food, while 16 percent had consumed wildlife in medicines or tonics. Respondents with high levels of income and education were found to be more likely to consume wildlife.

Not surprisingly, Guangzhou residents consumed the most wildlife, followed by Kunming residents. They were followed by residents of Harbin and Chengdu, respectively.

Growing demand and diminishing supply of wildlife were cited in the report as alarming trends which demand shifts in current government policy toward endangered and threatened species.

While there is little chance of anyone eating a panda in China, enforcement of other less-protected animals around the country could be more effective.

An excellent local example of this ineffective enforcement is the protected kanglang fish which is widely available at restaurants around Fuxian Lake, 70 kilometers southeast of Kunming, and has become a famous local delicacy partly because it is increasingly rare and expensive.

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Tags: Beijing, Chengdu, endangered species, environment, Fuxian Lake, Guangzhou, Harbin, kanglang fish, SARS, Shanghai, Traditional Chinese Medicine, wildlife

Si Jia

More than two months after the devastation of the 8.0 magnitude Wenchuan earthquake, the psychological scars of the earthquake and its aftermath are only beginning to heal for those who were affected by the massive tremor.

In addition to the millions of survivors in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, the endangered giant panda, also known as China's 'national treasures' (国宝, guobao) are also recovering from the traumatic experience. China's largest giant panda breeding base at Wolong is only 30 kilometers from Wenchuan.

Initially the three pandas Si Jia (思嘉), Qian Qian (芊芊) and Mei Qian (美茜) – all females less than two years old – were transported out of Wolong to another base in Ya'an, Sichuan. Due to continuous aftershocks and landslides, it was decided that the pandas would be moved to Kunming, where it is hoped they will recover from what is essentially post-traumatic stress disorder over the next two years.

Qian Qian

After arriving in Kunming on June 26, the three pandas are now in their third week at the Yunnan Wild Animal Zoo in northeast Kunming, and are still jittery from the quake.

The Wenchuan quake was catastrophic for the Wolong reserve, where 150 pandas had been living. More than a dozen of the base's 32 pens were destroyed, five pandas went missing and one died.

Si Jia, Qian Qian and Mei Qian didn't come to Kunming alone, their zoo keeper Xiao Yi also moved to Kunming from Wolong. According to a Xinhua report, their keeper tries to soothe the three young pandas by saying nice things to them in the Sichuan dialect.

"When they feel safe enough, the three pandas will enjoy themselves in the playground," Xinhua quoted Xiao as saying. "They roll all the way down the slope and stack themselves up, one on top of another, but they are extremely scared of loud noises."

Mei Qian

According to Xiao, recent thunder in Kunming has had a startling effect on the pandas, who are having the same reactions to thunder as they did to the aftershocks and landslides in Sichuan.

There are plans to build a new Wolong panda base, this time in Huangcaoping, Sichuan. Required investment for the project is estimated at two billion yuan (US$290 million). The new base, proposed by the Wolong reserve, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is expected to feature a panda laboratory, panda hospital, a 1,500 square meter cub pen plus a bamboo cultivation area.

Kunming's three pandas will have to wait if they want to move back to Wolong – if approved, the project is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Image: clzg.cn

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Tags: endangered species, environment, pandas, Sichuan, Wenchuan earthquake, Wolong

Following the chilling announcement by the World Wildlife Fund that world animal populations have dropped by roughly 25 percent since 1970, another animal native to China has been declared extinct.

A research team of anthropologists from Zurich University working in conjunction with the Kunming Institute of Zoology declared the Yunnan white-handed gibbon to be extinct. The ape was last seen in 1988 in Yunnan's Nangunhe Nature Reserve. Its loud, melodious calls were last heard by humans in 1992.

The Yunnan white-handed gibbon, aka Hylobates lar, is the most notable Chinese animal to go extinct since the Yangtze River's baiji dolphin, which was declared extinct by experts last year, only to have a Baiji dolphin spotted in the river shortly thereafter.

"This loss is particularly tragic", said anthropologist Thomas Geissmann, "because the extinct Chinese population was described as a distinct subspecies, the so-called Yunnan white-handed gibbon." Geissmann now hopes that the subspecies may have survived in neighbouring Myanmar, but so far, he has no evidence for this.

The loss of the Yunnan white-handed gibbon is being viewed by experts as a potential harbinger of doom for other Chinese apes. China is home to a unique diversity of apes, but most of them are currently endangered. China's native ape populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, primarily due to forest destruction, fragmentation and deterioration – as well as hunting.

Chinese ape species that are currently endangered include the white-cheeked crested gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys), which has not been sighted in China since the 1980s. The Cao-Vit crested gibbon (N nasutus) exists in Guangxi, China and Cao Bang, Vietnam and is down to less than 50 individuals. The Hainan crested gibbon (N hainanus) of Hainan province has less than 20 individuals.

"We hope that our research results will alarm the Chinese government as well as international conservation agencies and encourage them to initiate immediate efforts to save China's last surviving apes", says Geissmann.

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Tags: baiji dolphin, endangered species, environment, Nangunhe Nature Reserve, Yunnan white-handed gibbon

One of the most biologically diverse regions in China and the world, Yunnan province is home to a disproportionate amount of China's animal species – many of which are endangered. According to the Yunnan Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, Yunnan is home to more than 59 percent of China's endangered animal species.

Not surprisingly, most of landlocked Yunnan's endangered animals such as the red panda, the Yunnan golden monkey, Asian elephant and the black crested gibbon are terrestrial creatures. However, Yunnan is covered with lakes of varying sizes and altitudes – these lakes also contribute to the province's biodiversity.


Unfortunately, many of the fish species found in Yunnan's lakes – many of which are only found in Yunnan – are also endangered, primarily due to overfishing and pollution, especially pesticide runoff. Yunnan's lakes are home to 60 species found nowhere else in the world.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) recently released a joint appeal to protect the remaining fish species indigenous to Yunnan. Surprisingly, many of these alpine fish species can only be found in pools located within the thousands of Buddhist temples throughout the province.

For example, according to a study by KIZ – a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – all 25 indigenous fish species in Dianchi Lake are extinct within the lake itself but still exist in the pools of Buddhist compounds bordering the lake. Dianchi is Yunnan's largest lake and the sixth-largest freshwater lake in China.

In an unusual mix of religion and environmental protection, the KIZ report calls upon provincial authorities to protect the pools at Buddhist temples in the area and the fish which populate them. As Xinhua puts it:

"On the basis of the survey, the shrines should be made a protection sites for rare and indigenous aquatic life and protective measures should be drafted in an early date. And a publicity drive has to be launched so as to beef up the public's awareness of the conscious protection and all society's participation."

Dragon pool image: Xinhua

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Tags: Buddhism, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dianchi Lake, endangered species, environment, fish, Kunming Institute of Zoology

In addition to sharing a border – and the Mekong River – with Laos, Yunnan province also shares China's last herd of Asian elephants, which in recent years has dwindled to only 400 elephants. The herd lives in nature reserves near the border between China and Laos.

This week the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department met with their counterparts from Laos in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture to discuss ways to protect the endangered Asian elephant, which falls under China's grade-one protection for endangered animal species.

The representatives from China and Laos reached four major agreements:

1. To educate villagers about how to protect elephants
2. To tighten hunting gun controls
3. To draft a plan for cross-border elephant protection and apply for international funds, and
4. To plan next year's annual meeting in Laos

There are roughly 30,000 Asian elephants left in South and Southeast Asia. Asian elephants average 3.2 meters in height and more than five tons. The animals spend most of their days looking for food, understandable considering that they require around 300 kilograms of it each day.

Although it is less populated than other parts of China, Xishuangbanna is still feeling the impact of China's rapid economic development. Elephants, normally docile creatures, are known to attack when feeling encroached upon by humans. In the last few weeks, there have been two elephant attacks upon humans in Xishuangbanna.

In January, American tourist Jeremy Allen McGill was seriously injured by an elephant attack which left him with eight broken bones and injuries to his lungs, stomach and intestines. Weeks later another elephant attack ended in fatality when on the night of Chinese New Year an elephant in Xishuangbanna attacked and killed Zeng Shaoping as he returned from holiday festivities.

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Tags: elephants, endangered species, environment, Laos, Xishuangbanna

In what appears to be an unintended effect of conservation efforts in Yunnan's Three Parallel Rivers Protected Areas, black bears are increasingly raiding farms and homes of residents inhabiting nearby villages, according to a recent Xinhua report.

The black bear population in the area, which has been on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 2003, has grown considerably since a government ban on bear hunting in the early 1990s, the report quotes Feng Yuzhong, a resident of the town of Shuangla in Yunnan's Gongshan Dulong Autonomous Prefecture.

According to Feng, black bears from the nearby mountains have killed more than 20 sheep and destroyed more than 150 mu (about 10 hectares) in Shuangla's Bingzhongluo village since August. This year alone at least 26 villages in Gongshan County have experienced similar bear problems, with scarecrows, bells and dogs proving ineffective at keeping bears out of inhabited areas. It is believed that the bears are making incursions into the villages because of a lack of food in the mountains where they dwell.

In the years following the protection of the area, many of the rare plant and animal species in the protected area have bounced back from the brink of extinction. The area only occupies less than 0.4 percent of China's land area, but it is home to one-fifth of the country's plant species and one-fourth of the country's animal species.

Image: Data.yunnan.cn

Tags: black bears, endangered species, environment, Gongshan, Shuangla, Three Parallel Rivers Protected Areas

Yesterday afternoon Yunnan Wild Animal Zoo received two giant pandas from the Panda Research Centre at Wolong, Sichuan province - the first time that giant pandas have been exhibited in Yunnan - according to a Yunnan Daily report.

The two panda brothers, Didi and Xinxing, arrived to a warm welcome at Kunming International Airport after being coaxed into steel cages and flown more than 1,000 kilometres from Chengdu.

Didi, the older of the two, was born in 1994 at Wolong, to Panpan and Jiajia (pictured). Panpan is renowned as a master breeder - 17 percent of the pandas at the research centre are related to him. Jiajia found fame further afield: she went to Hong Kong in 1997 with An'an, to be star attraction at the Special Administrative Region's Ocean Park, in a twist on China's long-standing practice of 'panda diplomacy'.

Didi's breeder, Song Haitao, says Didi is rather fond of sleep, each day getting at least 10 hours, if he isn't woken. A typical day at Wolong would involve little more than sleeping and eating, perhaps with breaks for sunbathing in the play area, or the luxury of a spell in a cool air blast in the aircon room.

We've seen the Yunnan Wild Animal Zoo on GoKunming before - panda fishing anyone?

For directions to the zoo, check out that last link.

Tags: endangered species, environment, giant panda, Wolong

The seeds of a rare plant that had been presumed extinct for a century before being rediscovered in Yunnan's Shilin County last year have been filed away for safe keeping by the Millennium Seed Bank in England, the Times Online reported.

The yellow-flowered paraisometrum mileense, known in Chinese as mile jutai (弥勒苣苔), is indigenous to Shilin and Mile Counties in southeastern Yunnan. It was rediscovered by researchers from the Kunming Institute of Botany last August. The last time the plant had been known to exist was in 1906 by French missionary and botanist E Ducloux.

In addition to having its seeds stored away in England, the plant, which grows primarily on Karst limestone formations, will also be grown in botanical gardens in Yunnan.

Tags: endangered species, environment, Kunming Institute of Botany, paraisometrum mileense