This just in from the Wildlife Conservation Society:
<<The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today that critically
endangered alligators in China have a new chance for survival. The
WCS's Bronx Zoo, in partnership with two other North American parks and
the Department of Wildlife Conservation and Management of the State
Forestry Administration of China, has successfully reintroduced
alligators into the wild that are now multiplying on their own.
The
alligator hatchlings—15 in number—are the offspring of a group of
alligators that includes animals from the Wildlife Conservation
Society's Bronx Zoo. The baby alligators represent a milestone for the
10-year effort to reintroduce the Chinese alligator on Chongming
Island, located at the mouth of China's Yangtze River.
(Image Credit: WCS)
The
announcement was made at the International Congress for Conservation
Biology, convened by the Society for Conservation Biology in Beijing,
China (July 11-16).
"We are grateful to our Chinese partners
for their commitment to reintroduce Chinese alligators back into the
wild," said Dr. Steven E. Sanderson, President and CEO of the Wildlife
Conservation Society. "WCS has championed careful wildlife
reintroductions for more than a century. The reintroduction of Chinese
alligators is a great example of how WCS partners with governments and
local communities around the world to save wildlife and wild places."
"This
is fantastic news," said WCS researcher Dr. John Thorbjarnarson, one of
the world's foremost experts on crocodilians and a participant in the
project. "The success of this small population suggests that there's
hope for bringing the Chinese alligator back to some parts of its
former distribution."
Plans to reintroduce Chinese alligators
started in 1999 with a survey conducted by WCS, the Anhui Forestry
Bureau, and the East China Normal University in Anhui Province, the
only remaining location where the reptiles are still found in the wild
in what is a small fraction of the alligator's former range. The
results of the survey were dire, with an estimate of fewer than 130
animals in a declining population.
An international workshop
on the species was held in 2001, followed by recommendations for the
reintroduction of captive bred alligators. The first three animals
released in Hongxing Reserve of Xuancheng County in Anhui in 2003 were
from the Anhui Research Center of Chinese Alligator Reproduction
(ARCCAR).
To ensure the maximum genetic diversity for the
effort, project participants imported 12 more animals to Changxing
Yinjiabian Chinese Alligator Nature Reserve from North America,
including four from the Bronx Zoo. From this group, three animals from
the U.S. were released in 2007 along with three more alligators from
Changxing. The alligators were given health examinations by veterinary
professionals from WCS's Global Health Program and the Shanghai
Wildlife Zoo and fitted with radio transmitters for remote monitoring
before being released.
Experts reported that the reintroduced alligators successfully hibernated, and then in 2008, bred in the wild.
With
a former range that covered a wide watershed area of East China, the
Chinese alligator—or "tu long," which means "muddy dragon"—is now
listed as "Critically Endangered" on IUCN's Red List of Threatened
Species and is the most threatened of the 23 species of crocodilians in
the world today. It is one of only two alligator species in existence
(the other is the better known, and much better off, American
alligator).
The Yangtze River, where the reintroduction of
these alligators took place, is the third longest river in the world
(after the Amazon and the Nile) and is China's most economically
important waterway. The world's largest hydro-electric dam—the Three
Gorges Dam—is also located on the river. The high levels of development
along the river have become a challenge for native wildlife; in 2006, a
comprehensive search for the Yangtze River dolphin, or baiji, didn't
find any, although one isolated sighting of a dolphin was made in 2007.
###
Other
participants in the project include the East China Normal University,
Shanghai Forestry Bureau, Changxing Yinjiabian Chinese Alligator Nature
Reserve, and Wetland Park of Shanghai Industrial Investment (Holdings)
Co. Ltd.
The project is being supported by the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, Hong Kong.>>
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