Fw: (CN) NYTimes.com Article: Rare Alligator Is Threatened as China Feeds Its People

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Rare Alligator Is Threatened as China Feeds Its People

 

By CAROL KAESUK YOON

 

In China, the dragon is a symbol of royal power and good fortune, a

creature so revered that it symbolizes the nation itself and is

considered the mythical ancestor of all its people. Yet while

China's imaginary dragons thrive in art and folklore, what could be

called the country's only living dragon appears to be in serious

trouble.

 

According to a new study, the Chinese alligator — the animal that

may have inspired the mythical creatures and is known as tu long,

or earth dragon — is barely hanging on in nature.

 

Researchers say fewer than 130 of these animals are left in the

wild, though their current habitat in southeastern China can hardly

be called wilderness.

 

Once widespread in the lakes and wetlands of the lower Yangtze

River Valley, the Chinese alligator, which can reach six feet in

length, is now restricted to ponds surrounded by rice paddies and

villages. One of the largest and most promising populations

consists of 11 stragglers who live in a pond near a video rental

shop, farmhouses and a vast expanse of rice paddies.

 

Dr. John Thorbjarnarson, a conservation zoologist at the Wildlife

Conservation Society, which has its headquarters at the Bronx Zoo,

and his Chinese and American co-authors predict that unless it gets

help, the Chinese alligator will soon become the first crocodilian

to become extinct in the wild in historical times. The study is

coming out soon in the journal Biological Conservation.

 

" They're rice refugees, " Dr. Thorbjarnarson said. " There's no

habitat left. They wander around from rice field to rice field

looking for a place to live, and they're not finding it. " The

alligators are even worse off than the tally suggests because few

of them appear to be reproducing in the wild, he added.

 

Dr. James Perran Ross, the executive officer of the crocodile

specialist group with the World Conservation Union, called the new

study " a real call to action. " He added, " If we do nothing, it'll

go extinct. "

 

But while the alligators are disappearing in the wild, they are

thriving in captivity, with more than 10,000 crowding the Anhui

Research Center for Chinese Alligator Reproduction near Xuancheng,

China.

 

The numbers raise the possibility of reintroductions if habitats

can be found, a difficult prospect because of China's large

population. And, not everyone is thrilled at the idea of an

alligator in the neighborhood. Researchers from around the world

will gather this week in Anhui province to discuss how these

alligators can begin to be returned to the wild.

 

The Chinese alligator's troubles began some 7,000 years ago when

people in the lower Yangtze River Valley became among the first in

the world to cultivate rice. As China's population grew, the

alligators' wetland habitat was steadily lost to rice paddies and

fish ponds.

 

To survey the country's remaining alligators, Dr. Thorbjarnarson

and his colleagues went to the 13 areas in China where the species

is protected as well as to other known or suspected alligator

sites.

 

What they found were a surprisingly small number of alligators.

 

" The first site I went to was one that was supposed to have a

couple hundred alligators, " Dr. Thorbjarnarson said. " We saw only

two and a farmer bathing his buffalo in the pond. "

 

Only then, he said, did he realize the dire situation the species

was in. The scientists expected to be walking through wetlands, but

instead, Dr. Thorbjarnarson said, " we found we were walking through

farmers' backyards and rice fields — that was the survey. "

 

The researchers went out at night on ponds in an inflatable boat

that they could fit in a suitcase. Wearing headlamps, surveyors

scanned the surface of the water, watching for light reflecting

back from the eyes of a floating alligator.

 

In the end, the researchers actually saw only 23 Chinese

alligators. Based on other information they could gather from

sources like local farmers, they set the upper limit for the total

in the wild at somewhere below 130.

 

In their survey, the researchers also found that while some people

took great pride in the alligators, even posting plaques to honor

their local dragons, others felt fear and loathing. While a tu long

is too small to present a threat to human life, many people do not

want an alligator in their village pond.

 

One problem is that the alligators sometimes enjoy a meal of duck

or fish that would otherwise be enjoyed by humans. Rice farmers

also find that alligators can be a nuisance as they burrow into and

destroy irrigation structures in rice fields. Itinerant alligators

can also crush delicate rice plants as they lumber from place to

place.

 

At one site where the community pond is used for raising ducks for

sale, local farmers threw stones at government officials

accompanying the researchers because the farmers felt that the

government should reimburse them for the ducklings lost to the

protected alligators. At that site, previously thought to harbor

the largest population of alligators in the area, the scientists

found none.

 

The researchers were also surprised to find the alligators forced

into odd habitats. While Chinese alligators prefer low-lying

wetlands, they were found living in ponds at higher elevations even

though the soil was unsuitable for digging burrows.

 

So while adults were able to walk down to burrows in the valley

below, the tiny hatchling alligators simply froze in the winter

cold.

 

Dr. Thorbjarnarson and his colleagues found that one desperate

female had walked up to a pond in a pine forest and built a nest of

pine needles because she had been unable to find a spot to build

her hummock of a nest with fast-decomposing wetland plants. The

pine needles, slow to disintegrate, failed to compost and heat her

eggs, which subsequently died.

 

" He's been able to find alligators in extremely unusual habitat

that no self-respecting Chinese alligator would ever use under

normal conditions, " said Dr. Kent Vliet, an alligator biologist at

the University of Florida. " They're really just eking out an

existence in the wild. "

 

Alligators have also suffered in other ways from their proximity

to people — even though the alligators are protected by Chinese law

(as are some of their ponds, though neither the land around them

nor the water in the ponds is protected). Some of the recent

documented losses include accidental deaths when alligators were

caught by a fisherman or ate poisoned rodents that had been

disposed of in a pond.

 

The only other alligator species in the world is the American

alligator, which grows to be about twice the size of a Chinese

alligator and is considerably more threatening to humans.

 

The American alligator was itself threatened at one time by

unrestricted harvesting, but Dr. Vliet said there are now one

million to two million American alligators.

 

The American alligator's success, researchers say, bodes well for

those hoping to restore the tu long in the wild.

 

" These kinds of animals can recover remarkably, " Dr. Vliet said.

" They have a tremendous ability to reproduce and recover. " But that

would require the right habitat and enough protection, he said.

 

In its attempt at a comeback, the endangered Chinese alligator,

which can live 60 years or more, has the advantage of being

associated with the beneficent Chinese dragon.

 

In Western myths, dragons are typically evil, fire-breathing

creatures that should be slain. But dragons in Chinese myths often

save people and are the givers and protectors of life, said Dr.

Qiguang Zhao, a Chinese culture specialist at Carleton College.

 

The Chinese dragon does not have wings, but, in Chinese mythology,

it can fly and swim. At one time it was considered the mythological

ancestor of emperors. In today's more egalitarian times, all

Chinese people are considered dragons' descendants.

 

Another factor in the alligator's favor is that in China,

alligator meat is thought to have health benefits, including

fending off old age. Dr. Thorbjarnarson said two restaurants, one

in Beijing and one near the breeding center in Anhui province, were

licensed to sell alligator meat. (It's served in small pieces

cooked with vegetables and rice.)

 

While the popularity of alligator meat may also prompt some people

to poach wild, protected animals, Dr. Thorbjarnarson considers it

to be a positive factor on the whole. In China, where every bit of

land is prized for use in supporting the vast human population, a

species that makes itself useful may be much more likely to

survive.

 

Scientists say this week's workshop also bodes well for the

alligator because it is sponsored not only by groups like the

Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Conservation Union but

also by the government.

 

Researchers say that in the past, they have had difficulty gaining

attention in China for the plight of the tu long. But in an

apparent shift, the government appears to be taking a stronger

interest in the natural populations of its long-forgotten dragon.

In fact, Dr. Ross said, the tu long appears to have joined the

ranks of the three animal stars that are drawing most of the

Chinese government's conservation attention: the panda, the Chinese

crane and the Pere David's deer.

 

In addition, Dr. Thorbjarnarson said, Chinese and American

researchers are already making plans for the first attempt at

reintroducing Chinese alligators. The animals will come from, of

all places, the Bronx Zoo. He said researchers still needed to find

$40,000 to undertake a yearlong project to get the alligators

situated in a new home in the wild, where their progress would be

monitored.

 

Dr. Thorbjarnarson is hoping to use fish ponds on an island. " It's

a big island right at the mouth of the Yangtze, " he said.

" Hopefully we'll create some habitat out there for this release. "

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/21/science/life/21ALLI.html?ex=999415142 & ei=1

& en=ca6bb02dec761030