Study On The Relationships Between Local People And Wildlife In Medog, Tibet, China

The importance of the eastern Himalaya as an important center of biological diversity has long been recognized. Yarlung Tsangpo River flows eastward through southern Tibet before looping north then toward the plains of India. And it flows all through Medog County. The style of life and working affected the environment while the wildlife bring them damages.Hunting: All Menba and Luoba families were hunting or have once hunted. There were 65.22% of Menba families and 73.33%Luoba families were still hunting by the end of investigation, however less (22.32%) Tibetan families were hunting then and before. Hunters were all males with an age of 46.76+16.19 years old, and they began hunting at 15.54+3.86 and end hunting at 51.00+13.16 years old. Now hunter's age were 37.04+10.79 years oldEvery hunter would go to hunt for takin and musk deer 6.26+7.67 times a year before 1990 and then 2.83+2.08 times one year. Red goral, black munjac, macaca spp. were frequently hunted near the villages with high frequencies, and it is very significant between before and after 1990.The frequencies of hunting were increasing from spring to winter even though there was no significant difference between four seasons. Generally there were 12.58 + 9.33 days spent on hunting takin while 16.23 +10.1 days on musk deer in once hunting tour. And there were 8.23 +5.37 hunters for hunting takin while 2.87 + 0.95 hunters for musk deer.Usually black bear, Indian muntjac, black muntjac, monkeys and wild boar were hunted near villages but bears were mostly hunted in corn fields; and red goral and mainland serow were hunted in relatively distant places; however, takin and musk deer were hunted in distant places that it would cost 1 day to get there.Hunting tools including guns and other tools, of which small-bored rifle was used the most frequently, and then were military guns, snares, shotgun and bow and arrow. There were average4.38 + 4.06 takins hunted in once hunting trip before 1990 but 2.19 + 2.19 takins after 1990; whereas 11.30 + 14.73 musk deer before 1990 and it increasing sharply after 1990 and became more and more serious.The main aim of hunting was for meat from takin and other angulates and profit from musk deer and bear. The present hunting in Medog was very likely to be unsustainable.Wildlife depredation on livestock: The main depredated livestock were cattle, horses, mules and pigs and the main predators was tigers, and also a few bears and wild dogs. Most depredations (91.37%) occurred in 1990s and in Gedang Xiang. There were 97.37% families suffered from losing livestock. Even though the depredation occurrences were not significantly different between months and seasons, they showed an increasing trend from spring to winter.Horses and mules were depredated most by tiger during 1990-1999 with an average of 10.60 + 10.15 heads per year, and it showed a significant difference among months with the most occurrences in November (18.82%) and the least from August to September (1.18%, 2.35% and 1.18% individually). Cattle also killed mostly in November but less in May (0.77 + 1.91) and September (1.14 + 1.05). Livestock were preyed by tiger mainly in grassland and forest-grass with cattle also in forest-shrub-grass environments. There were 29.47% depredated livestock dragged by tiger for a certain distance.Wild dogs were often in groups of 2-7 individuals and mainly preyed on cattle and pigs; black bear preyed mainly on cattle.The numbers of depredated livestock by tiger were significantly related with breeding size of family. Herding style of local people and their hunting on wild games were the main reasons of tiger depredation which caused 41.30% of economical loss of family during 1993-1999 in Gedang Xiang.It is supposed that there would be 5 tigers in Gedang Xiang in those years.Crop damages by wild animals: All investigated families were suffered from crop damages by wild animals. Wheat and barley were only planted in Gedang Xiang, Jialasa Xiang and Gandeng Xiang while rice was planted in other Xiangs, and 77.9...