(CN) Crocs pulled from jaws of extinction

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China Daily http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2001-09-03/30544.html

(LIANG CHAO)

09/03/2001

 

GUANGZHOU: Efforts to protect and breed endangered Chinese crocodilian are

to be intensified through international co-operation, forestry chiefs

pledged yesterday.

" It is of vital importance for China to enhance the protection and

management of crocodilian resources after indigenous Chinese alligators

narrowly escaped extinction through the State's protection and conservation

efforts since 1983, " a deputy director of the State Forestry Administration

(SFA) said.

 

Addressing an international workshop on captive breeding and commercial

management of crocodiles, Ma Fu told more than 80 officials and experts that

China will further push forwards the protection, growth and sustainable use

of crocodile resources through links with other countries.

 

The workshop included some 40 foreign scholars from the Crocodile Specialist

Group of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - the

largest of its kind in the world.

 

Since the early 1980s, China has initiated a special programme to save the

Chinese alligator by establishing a nature reserve with a breeding and

research centre in Wuhu in East China's Anhui Province.

 

The population of Chinese alligators bred in captivity has surged to more

than 10,000 with more than 1,500 individuals being reared annually.

 

In the Anhui centre, the reptiles are living in a 433-square-kilometre

nature reserve which is their only protection zone in the country, said Wang

Chaolin, director of the Chinese Alligator Breeding Research Centre.

 

So far, more than 80 Chinese alligators have been returned to the wild with

a survival rate of about 50 per cent. The centre has set aside four zones

near the reserve as future homes for reptiles.

 

It has been conducting a series of research programmes on the returned

alligators. Zoological experts are also working to improve awareness on the

need to protect Chinese alligators.

 

Twenty years ago there were fewer than 300 Chinese alligators remaining in

the wild, mainly in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces.

 

To ensure a gradual and sustainable growth of the population of crocodilian,

China has also tightened its control over the introduction, breeding and

wise use of exotic crocodilian with higher economic values.

 

The skin of the crocodile is highly valued for its deluxe leather, and the

extract from the musk glands is used in the manufacture of perfumes.

 

Due to overhunting, most of the world's existing 20 species of crocodilian,

including Chinese alligators, are considered endangered species.

 

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The amount of crocodilian in China has increased to more than 100,000 since

1993, including nearly 70,000 species imported mainly from Thailand,

Malaysia, South Africa and the United States at a cost of more than US$12

million.

During the past decade, China has only exported some 300 Chinese alligators,

including live individuals, specimens and skeletons with the approval of the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and

Flora (CITES), which China officially signed up to in 1981.

 

China has become one of the largest potential markets for crocodile products

in the world and its breeding is developing on a growing scale in line with

its rapidly expanding economy during the past two decades, according to Ma

Fu, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration.

 

Competition in breeding the reptiles has become fierce in the world's major

countries with the species' populations reaching millions as captive

breeding and wise use of crocodilian resources become a prospective

industry.

 

China faces disadvantages in competition due to limited areas with climate

suitable for such large-scale breeding, a proliferation of species with

lower economic values, high costs and particularly poor leather-working, and

few crocodilian products.