A war more than fifty years ago profoundly changed the relationship between Ladakh herders and Tibetan wild donkeys.
In October 1962, a war broke out on the Sino-Indian border. The PLA quickly crushed the Indian army and then withdrew 20 kilometers behind the Line of Actual Control. Before the war, China and India clashed on the nearly 2,000-kilometer border line; after the war, China and India confronted each other for many years, until Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee visited China in 2003, when the two sides resumed talks on the border issue.
Surprisingly, the war may have been the starting point for a conflict between herders in eastern Ladakh and Tibetan wild donkeys.
Tibetan Wild Donkey: Ladakh's once free soul
Located in northern India and bordering Tibet in China to the east, Ladakh is one of the most rugged and barren mountains in the world. Ladakh is divided into two districts, the kargil district in the west and the leh district in the east. The district covers an area of 45,000 square kilometers, is comparable in size to Coco Siri, and is similar in altitude, topography and vegetation to Coco Siri.
Tibetan wild donkeys are widely distributed on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Ladakh is the western tip of the Tibetan wild donkey distribution area. Image source: Charler, "Creatures on the Tibetan Plateau" (2003)
For some time after the war, there were not many Tibetan wild donkeys in the area. In the late 1980s, the American zoologist Joel Fox estimated that the entire Ladakh was only 1500. This is very different from the historical situation. "In the 1930s, when Lieutenant Colonel C. Stockley of the British Empire H. Stockley) when he traveled to Ladakh, Tibetan wild donkeys were still everywhere. But it seems that since the 1980s, the Ladakh people have felt that there are more and more Hidden Wild Donkeys in their pastures. Unlike their ancestors, this time, they were very unhappy.
Donkeys, or the donkeys of the past
The Tibetan wild donkey is a creature with a very "personality": the head is surprisingly large, the mane is short and hard, the ears are straight, and the coat color is mottled. The Tibetan wild donkey is the largest wild donkey, strong and neat. Its limbs and underside of the body, including the underside of the neck, are white, and the inside of the ears and the end of the mouth and nose are also white. On the dorsal ridge, a dark stripe extends from the mane to the end of the tail, and it has a tuft of black filamentous hairs on the tail.
The Tibetan wild donkey, also known as the Tibetan wild donkey, is the largest of all wild donkeys. Image source: natgeocreative.com
George Schaller once described the Tibetan wild donkey this way: "They will gallop on the golden grassland, their tails fluttering in the wind, and their footsteps chasing the flying dust." Suddenly, like a well-trained cavalryman, he jerked to a halt and lined up to watch us pass them. For wild biologists, the Tibetan wild donkey is a delightful animal. However, not everyone agrees with Schaller. In the eyes of the British adventurer Himilton bower, the unsympathetic curiosity of the Tibetan wild ass often undermined the hunter's tracking of these noble animals. Another adventurer, Henry Savage Landor, also said that the Tibetan wild donkey is not docile at all! They often pretended to be docile, lured unsuspecting travelers close to them, and then suddenly charged him with their abdomen. ”
No matter how zoologists of the past have described it, the image of the Tibetan wild donkey as a free and somewhat clever has come to our minds.
A common struggle for the same meadow
In 2004, the Indian zoologist Y.V. Najar bhatnagar) conducted a survey of Tibetan wild donkeys in the eastern part of Lecheng District. In a spring sample line survey, he recorded 181 groups of Tibetan wild donkeys, a total of 365 heads, an average of 0.24 heads per square kilometer. In 2004 there were 210,000 head of livestock in the region, an average of 11 heads per square kilometre. Of the herbivores made up of Tibetan donkeys and domestic animals, Tibetan donkeys account for only 2 percent, while goats alone account for 57 percent. If converted into consumed forage, Tibetan wild donkeys eat only 10-11%, and livestock eat 89-90%.
For a long time, Tibetan wild donkeys shared barren alpine grasslands with domestic animals. Shooting: Caterpillars.
There is not as much food as livestock, so why do herders accuse Tibetan wild donkeys? The psychology of the herders is changing.
Hunting, mining and war led to a sharp decline in the number of Tibetan wild donkeys in the 1960s. The post-war generation of herders became accustomed to the low density of Tibetan wild donkeys, so that in the early 1980s, when the number of Tibetan wild donkeys began to recover, they accused Tibetan wild donkeys of destroying grasslands. From the 1960s to the 1980s, a large number of Tibetan wild donkeys poured into Ladakh to escape hunting on the Chinese side. Before the war, the influx of Tibetan herders had already crowded out the grasslands, and the arrival of Tibetan wild donkeys was even worse. The herders even demanded that the government "drive the Tibetan wild donkeys back to Tibet."
In addition, the distribution of wild donkeys hidden in the pastures of Ladakh is not even. On a large scale, the number of Tibetan wild donkeys is small, but in local areas, the tibetan wild donkeys in clusters can quickly eat a large amount of grass. The hindgut of the Tibetan wild donkey is less efficient in fermentation, and they must eat a lot of grass to maintain a large body. 70 wild donkeys can eat 199-254 kg of hay in a day, which is equivalent to 200 goats. In the arid District of Liecheng, meadows nourished by river wetlands are a scarce resource and an important habitat for both Tibetan wild donkeys and livestock.
For various reasons, in the decades after the war, the socio-economic changes in pastoral areas have intensified the conflict between Tibetan wild donkeys and herders. In the eastern part of The District of Liecheng, the Champa people, who traditionally migrated more than 100 km in season, have now decreased to 40-50 km, with population and livestock growth being the main reason. In particular, the feed provided by the government and the military during the harsh winters has greatly reduced the mortality rate of livestock, which may have been an important factor in regulating the number of livestock in the past. In addition, after the war, the Qiangba people were no longer able to take advantage of the grassland on the Tibetan side, and with the entry of refugees, the per capita grassland area gradually declined.
In the eyes of herders, the "excess" Tibetan wild donkeys have affected their lives. Image credit: Taken by the author of this article.
The demand for cashmere in the global market has also greatly stimulated the livestock industry in Ladakh. Traditionally, 95% of cashmere is used for the exchange of goods with the surrounding area. Over the past three decades, the Ladakh government has focused on the development of the cashmere industry. Veterinary services have significantly reduced pup mortality, while cashmere yields have not improved much. That is, to increase cashmere production, the number of goats must be increased.
A series of factors have led to a significant increase in the number of livestock on the tibetan donkey's habitat, and traditional animal husbandry is rapidly transforming into a monetary economy directly linked to the global market. Herders recognize the importance of every inch of land and see the Tibetan wild donkey as a scourge that destroys the grassland. It is no wonder that herders continue to lose their tolerance for Tibetan wild donkeys.
How can conflicts be mitigated?
Conflicts between herders and Tibetan donkeys focus on local critical resources, so management measures should be small-scale and locally specific. There are many ways to do this: monitoring changes in the population of Tibetan wild donkeys, investigating in detail areas with high levels of conflict, designing appropriate compensation programs, mitigating losses for herders, studying whether competition from Tibetan wild donkeys really affects cashmere production, stopping fences around meadows, and so on.
Although herders and local governments have accused Tibetan wild donkeys of being "too much," the problem of Tibetan wild donkeys is not "overabundant" at all. Its population exceeds the biological carrying capacity, which has a series of observable effects on the ecosystem, such as changes in vegetation structure, reduction of biodiversity, invasion of alien species and so on. In the arid Changtang meadows, there is no evidence that Tibetan wild donkeys have destroyed the grasslands, and instead, excess livestock may be the root cause of the problem.
Tibetan wild donkeys and domestic animals live in the same area, and their feeding habits are similar. The question is not only how many animals can be raised in the Tibetan wild donkey grassland, but also how many Tibetan wild donkeys can be tolerated by herders. Stakeholder acceptance capacity, or cultural carrying capacity, is another dimension of wildlife management. This dimension is often overlooked, but often determines the fate of many wild animals that coexist with herders. Values, economic interests, and experiences with wildlife all affect the tolerance of pastoralists.
Before the war, highland herders coexisted with Tibetan wild donkeys for thousands of years; after the war, it became increasingly difficult for herders to tolerate even low-density Tibetan wild donkeys. The winter herding of Tibetan wild donkeys, the changing psychological frame of reference of herders, the growing population and livestock, and even the rising price of cashmere have intensified the conflict between the two sides. On the vast Tibetan Plateau, Tibetan donkeys have had a similar experience with their Ladakh compatriots. They are numerous and pose no risk of extinction, although populations are not rigorously surveyed and monitored; herders generally complain that Tibetan wild donkeys compete with livestock forage. Any mature wildlife conservation system in any country will seek solutions at this time. Financial compensation for herders? Hunting a part of the Tibetan wild donkey? The management of the Tibetan wild donkey is not entirely a technical problem, but more of a problem left to the government. And any management measures can not ignore the participation of herders, if the relationship between local people and wild animals is divided, do not let them participate in wildlife management, it is doomed to fail to achieve the coexistence of people and wild animals.
Will the management of the Tibetan wild donkey be the teststone for wildlife management in western China? We'll see. (Editor: sol_ Yangyang)
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