Wildlife cop fights poachers to save antelope
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For 17 years, forestry cop Luo Yanhai has patrolled the desolate Hoh Xil region on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, tracking, chasing and sometimes fighting poachers hunting Tibetan antelope.
Thanks to Luo and his team of public security officers and conservationists — as well as state and international efforts — the endangered antelope is returning and its numbers are increasing.
Luo also protects their migration from breeding grounds and takes care of lost calves.
He works at elevations starting at around 4,600 meters.
Today 37-year-old Luo is deputy director of the Hoh Xil Forestry Public Security Bureau in Qinghai Province. “It’s fortunate that my buddies and I never got injured in the battle against poachers, since most of them surrendered as soon as we showed up,” Luo told Shanghai Daily in an online interview.
“This is a battle with real guns and bullets.”
There has been significant progress and Luo’s side is winning.
In August, the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve Administration reported that 35,000 female Tibetan antelope and 16,000 newborn calves were migrating from calving areas and most had arrived at their wintering grounds.
Hoh Xil, bordering the Tibet and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions, is the last habitat for Tibetan antelope, a “first-class” protected animal in China.
Hunting and trading in valuable antelope cashmere and antlers is strictly prohibited. At one time a cashmere shawl could cost from US$5,000 to US$30,000.
Profits were staggering and the antelope population decreased from 1-2 million in the late 1970s, to 50,000 to 75,000 in 1995.
“Many people are forced into poaching because of poverty,” said Luo, “but there is no excuse for a business that drives a species to extinction.”
Luo started out as an accounting major at the Qinghai Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences College, graduating in 1997. At that time, he was required to return for work to his hometown, the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
Hoh Xil is part of Yushu, the Hoh Xil Reserve had just been founded, and Luo saw an opportunity.
Back then there was no public security forestry bureau and he was not a policeman, just regular staff assigned to mountain patrols.
“There was no training in anything,” Luo recalled. “On the first patrol, several experienced policemen guided us. From then on, all 13 newcomers, including me, patrolled on their own.”
It took around 25 days to patrol the region, camping as they went and tracking poachers. They traveled at perilous, icy, high elevations where sudden snowstorms could cut them off.
“It was the first time I was away from people I knew. The landscape was astoundingly beautiful, but there were no people,” Luo said. “I felt cut off from the rest of the world, and every day I longed to go home.” He became accustomed to a life of isolation in an austere setting.
Weapons, communications equipment and vehicles were all very basic. Poachers were better armed and equipped.
Their vehicles used huge spotlights to startle and briefly “freeze” the antelope at night. They were easily mowed down. When they finally ran, the sociable animals gathered in small groups and were again shot down. They again ran, again they were frozen, again they were killed. The slaughter could go on for an entire night in which hundreds of animals were killed.
Hoh Xil is a key breeding ground and many pregnant antelope were killed.
In 2011, the forestry public security bureau was founded and Luo officially became a policeman. His team follow the poachers’ tire tracks.
“Many poachers are hired by traders outside the country, and we have to find the people behind them,” Luo said.
Since 2006, no poaching has been reported in Hoh Xil, according to the bureau. Luo said more people are aware of the need to protect endangered species and government efforts have been stepped up.
He said it all started in 1994 with the death of Jiesang Sonam Dajie, a Tibetan who was protecting antelope and was killed by poachers in Yushu. Sonam Dajie had formed China’s first anti-poaching team and had caught 20 poachers in seven vehicles. While he was taking them to jail, he was attacked and killed.
In 2004, the film “Hoh Xil,” or “Ke Ke Xi Li,” based on Sonam Dajie’s story, was a huge success.
Many people became aware of Tibetan antelopes. One of the mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympics was a Tibetan antelope.
“In recent years we see antelope grazing and running alongside the railway between Qinghai and Tibet, which was hard to imagine 10 years ago,” Luo said. “We witnessed the growth of herds from nothing.”
Now, apart from patrolling and deterring poachers, Luo and his team aid lost calves. During migration in July, after breeding season, some calves are lost or attacked by wolves.
Calves are taken in by Luo and his men and cared for until they are two years old.
“We have no professional vet or animal raisers, so we do it all by ourselves, and usually they grow up well,” he said.
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