Conservation leads to recovery of wildlife populations in China's Shaanxi

Two-and-a-half decades of sustained wildlife conservation efforts have led to the recovery of multiple rare wild animal species in a nature reserve in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Images of foraging or frolicking wild animals, such as snub-nosed monkeys, takins and musk deer, all under first-class protection in China, have recently been captured by infrared cameras set up in the vast reserve in Zhouzhi County in the provincial capital Xi'an.

What made one of the sightings rare was that three of the most protected species were spotted by the same camera for the first time, indicating the notable growth in the populations of these wild animals since the cameras were first set up at the reserve in 2013.

"We spotted five or six takins, a lot of snub-nosed monkeys that appear intermittently in four to five groups with each group having about 10, two musk deer and many wild boars," said He Yalou, head of a management station at the reserve.

He said in previous years, a single camera would spot only one of these first-class protected wild animals or a small number of second-class protected animals.

According to another staff member, since a project was launched 25 years ago to protect the ecological system of forests, the reserve has seen a steady increase in the populations of all kinds of wild animals, including four first-class protected species and nearly 20 second-class protected ones.

"As the protected habitats of these animals steadily recover, there has been an increasingly wider distribution of these animals. Since wild animals may appear in every corner of the forests, we need to step up management and protection work to ensure the safety of wild animal resources in the reserve and the harmonious co-existence of humans and animals," said Ding Qiaozhou, head of the resource monitoring and fire prevention division at the reserve.

(Cover: A Qinling takin in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, northwest China, July 1, 2014. /CFP)