The
Tibetan antelope or
chiru (
Pantholops hodgsonii) is a medium-sized
bovidA bovid is any of almost 140 species of cloven-hoofed ruminant mammal at least the males of which bear characteristic unbranching horns covered in a permanent sheath of keratin....
which is about 80 centimetres (2.6 ft) in height at the shoulder. It is the
sole speciesIn biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
in the
genusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Pantholops and is placed in its own subfamily, Pantholopinae. It is native to the
Tibetan plateauThe Tibetan Plateau , also known as the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, in addition to smaller portions of western Sichuan, southwestern Gansu, and northern Yunnan in Western China and Ladakh in...
including China's Tibet Autonomous Region,
QinghaiQinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
province, and
XinjiangXinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
Autonomous Region; and in
LadakhLadakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent...
, Jammu and Kashmir region of
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The Tibetan antelope is also known commonly by its Indian English name,
chiru. The
coatCoat, or the nature and quality of a show mammal's pelage, is important to the animal fancy in the judging of the animal, particularly at conformation dog shows, cat shows and horse shows...
is grey to reddish-brown, with a white underside. The males have long, curved-back horns which measure about 50 centimetres (1.6 ft) in length. There are less than 75,000 individuals left in the wild, down from a million 50 years ago.
Description
It was formerly classified in the
AntilopinaeAntilopinae is a subfamily of Bovidae. The gazelles, blackbucks, springboks, gerenuks, dibatags and Central Asian gazelles are often referred to as "True Antelopes" and are usually the sole representatives of the Antilopinae...
subfamily, but morphological and molecular evidence led to separation of the Chiru in the
monotypicIn biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
Pantholopinae, closely allied to goat-antelopes of the subfamily Caprinae (Gentry 1992, Gatesy
et al. 1992, Ginsberg
et al. 1999).
Tibetan antelope are gregarious, sometimes congregating in herds hundreds strong. The females migrate up to 300 kilometres (186.4 mi) yearly to calving grounds in the summer where they usually give birth to a single calf, and rejoin the males at the wintering grounds in late autumn (Schaller 1998). Chirus live on the high mountain steppes and semi-desert areas of the Tibetan plateau such as
KekexiliHoh Xil is an isolated region in the northwestern part of the Tibetan plateau in China....
, where they feed on various
forbA forb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid . The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory.-Etymology:...
and
grassGrasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
species. The average life span is about eight years.
Conservation
Tibetan antelope are listed as endangered by the
World Conservation UnionThe International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organization dedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges." The organization publishes the IUCN Red List, compiling information from a network of...
and the
United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
due to commercial poaching for their underwool, competition with local domesticated herds, and the development of their rangeland for gold mining. The Chiru's wool, known as
shahtooshShahtoosh is the name given to a specific kind of shawl, which is woven with the down hair of the Tibetan antelope , by the weavers of Kashmir.- Characteristics :...
, is warm, soft and fine. Although the wool can be obtained without killing the animal, poachers simply kill the chiru before taking the wool; the Chiru's numbers have dropped accordingly from nearly a million (estimated) at the turn of the 20th century to less than 75,000 today. The numbers continue to drop yearly. The struggle to stop illegal antelope hunting was portrayed in the 2004 film,
Kekexili: Mountain PatrolKekexili: Mountain Patrol is a 2004 film by Chinese director Lu Chuan that depicts the struggle between vigilante rangers and bands of poachers in the remote Tibetan region of Kekexili...
.
In July 2006 the Chinese government inaugurated a new railway that bisects the Chiru's feeding grounds on its way to
LhasaLhasa is the administrative capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China and the second most populous city on the Tibetan Plateau, after Xining. At an altitude of , Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world...
, the
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
an capital. In an effort to avoid harm to the animal, thirty-three special animal migration passages have been built beneath the railway. However, the railway will bring many more people, including potential poachers, closer to the Chiru's breeding grounds and habitat.
On February 22, 2008,
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
Online reported that China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, issued a public apology for publishing a
doctored photographPhoto manipulation is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception , through analog or digital means.- Types of digital photo manipulation :...
of Tibetan antelope running near the Qinghai-Xizang railway. Liu Weiqing, a 41-year-old photographer, was identified as the author of the work. He had reportedly camped on the Tibetan plateau since March 2007, as part of a series by the
Daqing Evening News, to raise awareness regarding the Tibetan bovid. He was also under contract to provide images to Xinhua. He has since resigned from
Daqing Evening News. Despite the impression given by the faked photo, the antelope are getting used to the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, according to a letter to
NatureNature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
on April 17, 2008, from researchers of the
Chinese Academy of SciencesThe Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
.
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