Status, Conservation And Some Ecological Aspects Of Sympatric Tibetan Brown Bear And Snow Leopard On The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China

The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is called the "third polar" of the earth and is thehighest, most extensive and youngest plateau in the world. The plateau towersmajestically on the top of the world. The plateau sits at the confluence of thePalearctic and Oriental zoogeographic realms, making it one of the mostcomplex alpine communities on earth. It is one of the most intact examples ofmontane grasslands in Eurasia with relatively intact vertebrate fauna.Tibetan brown bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus) and snow leopard (Uncia uncia)are two top-carnivores on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, which are now scatteddistributed throughout much of the plateau with sympatric populations. Theyare important members of healthy alpine ecosystems and are sometimes usedas indicator species of habitat health and wildness. However, informationregarding their status, food habit, habitat selection and distribution is urgentlylacking for better conservation and management of the species.Three extensive field surveys and interviewing had been conducted duringNovember-December 2004, June-July 2005 and July 2006 to assess thestatus and conservation of brown bear in the Kekexili Nature Reserve. Wefound abundant footprints, digging traces, resting signs and feces of brownbears in the study regions. Based on these signs, we estimated its presentdistribution range in the Kekexili Nature Reserve. Excessive livestock grazing,illegal mining and poaching are the main threat to the bears in the region. Wepropose to draw up specific conservation programs and to adopt amanagement plan for preserving this endemic subspecies on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.We documented food habits of Tibetan brown bear during summer 2005 inthe Kekexili Nature Reserve, Qinghai Province. Fecal analysis (n=83) revealedthat the plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) was the primary prey (78%occurrence, 46% dry weight, the same in the follow text), and that of wild yak (Bos grunniens, 39%, 31%) and Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsoni, 35%,17%) were important alternative prey. We suggest that the pikas should beconsidered a positive element of the alpine ecosystem on the plateau andwidespread poisoning activities to kill pikas should be halted. Noteworthy,plants occurred in 17% of bear feces but contributed negligibly to dry weight(2%) while animal material was 98% of total dry weight. We found brown bearin this region had two hunting modes: the Prey Actively Mode and theScavenge Mode. Both modes had almost same effect on the occurrence anddry-weight of preys in the diets of brown bears. We conclude brown bear in thisregion is evidently primarily carnivorous, a survival tactic adapted to thespecial environment of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, just as food habit of polarbear (Ursus americanus) is a survival tactic adapted to the South Poleenvironment.Linear transect, camera trapping and interview with the villagers were usedto study the snow leopard and its preys in the Gouli region, East BurhanbudaMountain, Kunlun Mountains. From May to June, 2005, from March to May,2006, and from December 2006-January 2007, we conducted 3 extensive fieldsurveys in the Gouli region to determine the population, distribution and statusof snow leopards. A total of 52 linear transects with a total length of～650 kmwas surveyed, and 288 snow leopards' signs of 5 types were discovered.During the second survey in 2006, we discovered 4 transects had snowleopard signs, which accounted for 12.5% of the total transects, while duringthe third survey of 2006-2007, we discovered 10 transects had snow leopardsigns, which accounted for 50% of the total transects. Average density of localungulates was 5.46±0.87 km^-2, for blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) was4.56±0.91 km^-2; for Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata) was 0.66±0.23km^-2; for Argali (Ovis ammon) was 0.21±0.08 km^-2 and for red deer (Cervuselaphus) was 0.26±0.20 km^-2.We used 'Hawk Eye I'auto-triggered cameras to trap the snow leopard. 16films and 259 photos were obtained with an average 16.2 photos per film (max.=35, min.=3) from March to May, 2006. There were 8 photos of snow leopard,29 birds (3 species), 13 other mammals (2 species) and 5 mammals' imagesthat can not be distinguished. The camera also shot 20 photos of livestock;and 12 films and 144 photos were obtained with an average 12 photos per film(max.=39, min.=3) from December, 2006, to January, 2007. There were 32 birds (3 species) and 32 mammals (2 species) and snow leopard and localdomestic livestock were also not shot again. 8 images of snow leopard wereshot with 4 different cameras, of which 2 photos were shot at dawn, 4 at duskand 2 at midnight. Average target captures of snow leopard was 29.6%. Basedon the camera trapping, we conclude that there were at least two snowleopards in the area while based on the density of ungulates, 6-8 snowleopards could be supported in the study region. Empirically, it wassubjectively estimated that the leopard tracks originate from 4-6 different catindividuals living in the study region.On the whole, local people believe in Tibetan Buddhism, they do not thinksnow leopard is the main reason of livestock loss. They perceived it is a naturethat carnivores, such as wolf (Canis lupus), lynx (Lynx lynx), leopard and othercarnivores, live on predation on wild ungulates and domestic livestock as well.Thus, most of the local people have a rather mild and tolerant attitude towardssnow leopard, leading to none retaliating killings. The primary alpine ecologicalenvironment is well preserved in this area. Therefore, the survival status ofsnow leopard and its sympatric wildlife within this area are encouraging.However, the value perspectives of local people are changing due toincreasing human population and desiring of pursuing larger number oflivestock. Our survey indicate there are 4 potential threats on local snowleopard and sympatric ungulates population: grassland fencing; continuouslyincreasing of livestock population and expanding of livestock grazing areas;lacking education and knowledge of wildlife protection laws and regulationsand the iron mining. We propose strongly to establish a nature reserve. It is themost direct and effective way to conserve this endangered cat and local alpinebiodiversity. Therefore, we advise that such a nature reserve should be set upin the region as early as possible to enforce the gene flow and reducepopulation isolation of snow leopards. We call the nature reserve is "GreatKunlun Nature Reserve" because we think that the geographical range of thenature reserve should include not only the Gouli and its adjacent regions, allBurhanbuda Mountain, but also expand to cover all the Kunlun Mountainsregions if we wish snow leopard and hers alpine ecosystem have a betterfuture.