Tag: Marco Polo sheep

Ignored management issues in the Khunjerab National Park, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Hussain Ali
PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi/Snow Leopard Foundation

Khunjerab National Park (KNP) is situated in the extreme North of the Pakistan and lies between 36o North and 75oEast. Its area is 226,913 ha. It was established in 1975, on the recommendations of famous zoologist George Schaller, with Marco polo sheep as flag species. At that time Marco polo sheep were present in two pockets within the park, one at the zero point (being an area of permanent presence) while, the second habitat of the Marco Polo sheep was erchanaiNalla where it had seasonal presence (generally in May-October during lambing). In 1969, the government of Pakistan made an agreement with the Chinese Govt. for the construction of a road along the historical Silk Route. The construction of this road (Karakorum Highway-KKH) started in 1969 and completed in 1979.

Before the construction of the Karakoram Highway only local people especially Mirs (Kings) of Hunza were involved in hunting of Marco Polo sheep. However, the situation got worst during the late 1960s and early 1970s due to increased human interference, especially by the people who took part in the survey and the construction of the Karakoram Highway. It is reported that, they were not hunting Marco Polo sheep only for sport, but also to feed their men (Rasool, 1990). The construction of the KKH increased access of visitor to KNP, which contributed to poaching and further decline in the population of the Marco Polo Sheep. Consequently, today presence of the Marco Polo Sheep is confined to the Kerchanai Nalla only.

Nevertheless, the establishment of the park and continuous efforts of the KNP administration contributed to a drastic decline in poaching incidences in the recent past. However, current renovation and expansion work on the KKH, has introduced new challenges for the park after 40 years. As a part of ongoing research project by the Snow Leopard Foundation (SLF) in KNP, the SLF team spent a substantial time in KNP in Nov-December 2010, which allowed us to make observations on issues currently faced by the park. Though the poaching incidences are pretty controlled these days, we observed following emerging issues:

1: Disturbance due to the contraction work: Approximately 66 km of KKH falls inside the Park and hundreds of labors with heavy machinery are working inside the park, including a large residential base camp. The presence of hundreds of people along with engineering machinery and vehicles is causing disturbance to the animals, particularly when wildlife cross the roads at or comes to river for drinking water. It is reported that when wildlife comes to river sometimes labor harass them by through stones. No environmental management system was observed to be in place; neither construction workers were trained on how to work in a sensitive environment.

2: Lack of Waste Management System: The residential camps of the construction company lack a proper waste management system as a result there is dumps of garbage near the camps and along the road. This attitude is totally inimical to the national park.

Figure 1: Garbage dumping along the Chinese Camps at KNP.

3: Hunting of Wildlife for Food: As the Chinese workers eat all kinds of animals so every available animal in the park present an attractive food for them, which is a likely threat to the wildlife if an environmental management system is not in place. We did not observe any signs of hunting by gun or explosives except. We however located traps which were set for capturing golden marmot.

Figure 2: Trap set to catch the Golden Marmot.

4: Lack of Traffic Management System: Cargo containers and the passenger buses moves through the park, and the Karakoram Highway remains busy from May to December. It is reported by game watchers that vehicle drivers blow horns or chase animals seen along the road. This element might be contributing to continuous stress on the animals, and avoidance of elusive species.

Figure 4: The copper wire that forms knots.

5: Left Over Wires: Few years back there was an active telecommunication line which was being used as a source of communication between Pakistan and China. This line is neither functional anymore nor maintained. Consequently, it has fallen on the ground and remains unattended. These wires have made knots in which the animals may get trapped.

Suggested Management Measures:
1. The road construction company should develop an environmental management system, if it did not exist before, addressing issues of waste management, traffic management, and precautions about working in sensitive environments, following EPA guidelines. This environmental management system should be strictly implemented and monitored by the GB Forest and Wildlife Department and other stakeholders.
2. The KNP directorate should implement a system of waste management and tourism management in the park.
3. All left over wires, equipment and nonfunctional infrastructure need to be removed.

Literature cited:
Rasool, G. 1990.The Status of Wildlife in Khunjerab National Park Northern Areas, Pakistan. Tiger Paper., p. 25-28.

A Force for Endangered Species: George Schaller

By Patrice O’Shaughnessy of the New York Daily News

Tuesday, February 24th 2009, 1:24 AM

He’s an unassuming man, with gray hair, pale eyes and a measured voice. But if not for George Schaller, there’d probably be a lot less spectacular beauty in the world.

At 75, he has devoted half a century to saving endangered creatures and habitats all over the planet. It’s a never-ending task.

“You can never relax, and say something is okay,” he said, and noted a new threat.

The influx of Chinese workers to Africa, he said, has spawned a trade in lion bones, sent back to China for medicinal purposes.

“In Kenya, they put an insecticide in cow carcasses, and they kill off the whole pride,” he said. “There are only about 20,000 lions left in the world.”

Schaller is on the case.

And he says he’ll keep at his conservation efforts “for another 25 years.”

The senior conservationist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Schaller has an office in the Bronx Zoo, but you’ll rarely see him there.

He visits animals in the wild, living for months or years at a time observing snow leopards in Pakistan, gorillas in Rwanda, lions in the Serengeti, pandas in China and the last Asiatic cheetahs in Iran to better learn how to protect them.

We caught up with him at the zoo last week, where he has been a researcher in animal behavior with the WCS since 1966, before he embarks on a round of trips to Iran, Brazil and Tibet.

Schaller was deemed “perhaps the greatest force for conservation in more than a century” by National Geographic magazine.

His efforts have led to the protection of threatened jungles and forests in Asia and South America, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Discover magazine said he is considered the finest field biologist of our time.

Schaller has spent 50 years up close with exotic animals, tracking them, jotting notes in a small notebook and taking photographs, doing it the old-fashioned way.

He conducted a groundbreaking ecological study of mountain gorillas when he was 25, becoming the first scientist to live in their habitat. Now he is focusing on Marco Polo sheep, notable for their majestic spiral horns.

“Professors said gorillas were too dangerous, but I found them very congenial. They’re big, beautiful hairy relatives,” he said.

“I started out because I like to watch animals; that’s the fun part,” he said.

“Then, you have to worry about livelihood of communities” encroaching on the habitats.”

At 14, after World War II, he came to the U.S. from Berlin with his American mother, and retains a slight German accent. His first field trip was to the Arctic slope in Alaska.

“The oil companies wanted to drill. Luckily, they didn’t,” he said. As of 2006, “the place is still beautiful .. . no roads, lots of caribou and grizzly bears.”

He and his wife, Kay, “the perfect co-worker,” raised two sons in exotic locales. She still accompanies him on some trips.

“The most wonderful place is Serengeti and Tanzania,” he said. “You literally see a million animals spread before you.”

He writes even more than he travels. Schaller has penned seven books and scores of articles with titles like, “Courtship Behavior of the Wild Goat,” and “Effects of a Snowstorm on Tibetan Antelope.”

On Thursday, Schaller will preside at a symposium at Rockefeller University on Manhattan‘s East Side.

It’s a commemoration of his years with the WCS, celebrating his contribution to science. A panel of international conservationists will examine the status of key species and landscapes that Schaller has brought to the world’s attention.

Is he excited about the symposium? He looked a little uncomfortable, and said, “Why do you think I am always overseas?”

Schaller is passionate, though, about his prized project, first conceived in the 1980s.

He envisions the Pamir International Peace Park, at the nexus of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Tajikistan. It will be a refuge for Marco Polo sheep.

“We had a meeting of all four countries,” he said.

He has never let war, strife, the political squabbles of humans or borders stop him.

As he wrote in one of his books, “I live in a geography of dreams. …”

poshaughnessy@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/02/23/2009-02-23_a_force_for_endangered_species-1.html

Commercial Hunting Endangers Rare Central Asian Sheep Species: Wildlife researchers say Marco Polo sheep under threat of extinction

Published 2008-12-12
Edited by Rich Bowden

Wildlife researchers are concerned a rare sub-species of Central Asian sheep known as Marco Polo sheep (Ovis ammon polii) is under threat of extinction because of widespread commercial hunting in Central Asian states such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Found in the Pamir Mountains, on the border region of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan, and named after the famed traveler Marco Polo who encountered them on his journeys in the region, experts estimate that only a fraction of the original number of the species remain. The species’ decline can be linked to regional political and economic factors and the activities of several commercial hunting businesses, they say.

The hunting operators have used the Marco Polo sheep as a lucrative commercial opportunity and have in the process, driven the sheep to the edge of extinction. According to George Schaller, vice president of the Science and Exploration Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the species can now be numbered to little more than 10,000.

The population of Marco Polo sheep has declined rapidly in Central Asia since 1980 due to political disturbances and economical factors in the region. This includes a long, unresolved war in Afghanistan which acts as an important habitat for these species.

However trophy hunters originating mostly from western Europe and North America, have shown great interest in signing up for Marco Polo sheep hunting adventures, ignoring the species’ endangered status.

Rick Herscher, owner and operator of Alaska Hunting Safaris in Anchorage, AK, describes hunting for the Marco Polo sheep as an adventure and joyful experience. The company runs hunts in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan for a fee of US$35,000 and Herscher said in a telephone conversation that authorities in Central Asian states can be notoriously corrupt where the issuing of a license for hunting can be a gold mine.

It is alleged that the corruption of officials in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, along with the increasing demand of trophy hunters around the world, is the main factor in the rapid development of the commercial hunting of the iconic sheep. Despite the fact that Marco Polo sheep have been officially recognized by the Agency of the Environment Protection of Kyrgyzstan as an endangered species, the hunting of the sheep continues to be legal in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Herscher said that with limited hunting permits available, planning on the safaris begins one year prior to the actual hunt. The official permit fee for hunting on Marco Polo sheep in Kyrgyzstan‘s Environment Government Agency is $6.80 per sheep and hunters take the opportunity to acquire them in the time available.

Unfortunately the plight of the Marco Polo sheep serves only to remind how we as a human society need to understand better how important the issue of conserving and protecting endangered species such as the Marco Polo sheep is for the future of our planet. Even in the 21st century it appears we are still unable to protect our endangered fauna for the benefit of future generations. History teaches us that what we lose will not return and that acting now is our only chance for preservation.

The example of the Marco Polo sheep is salient as we know that the world will lose this unique species if nothing is done to prevent irresponsible hunting in the abovementioned Central Asian states. Wealthy trophy hunters from around the globe, who apparently know that this species is under threat of extinction, appear to suffer no remorse.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=384389&rel_no=1