A Tibetan County Becomes Home to Black-necked CranesLhunzhub county, 70 kilometers north of Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, has become a home for black-necked cranes.The first group of several hundred blacked-necked cranes arrived in the county to spend the winter, the number of which is greater than previous years, local people said. Lhunzhub county carried out an investigation early this year and found that 1,519 rare birds spent the winter in the county. Statistics from 1995 show that 3,910 black-necked cranes, which accounted for 70.9 percent of the world's total black-necked crane population, spent the winter in Tibet. Black-necked cranes come to Tibet around October each year and stay at the wetland and barley fields in the northern part of the region to feast on grassroots, highland barley and ginseng fruits. Jiu'a, an official with the Lhunzhub county forestry department, said that since 1989, his county has taken a series of measures to ban the poaching of black-neck cranes. Protective measures have also helped increase the number of bar- headed geese and white-lipped deer, according to Jiu'a, adding that 10,200 bar-headed geese and more than 500 white-lipped deer live in the county. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |