More at http://www.sanctuaryasia.com |Photo Essay
FACING PAGE The Changthang (high-altitude Tibetan Plateau), is a vast
expanse of cold-desert spanning eastern Ladakh and extending into Tibet.
This unforgiving landscape, with steppe vegetation, high rolling mountains,
and extreme weather conditions, is the home of the Tibetan wild-ass or
kiang Equus kiang, one of the highest-dwelling large mammals in the world,
inhabiting undulating, open habitats between 3,500– 5,500 metres above msl.
The Tibetan wild ass or kiang Equus kiang is
the only wild member of the Equidae family
inhabiting the Trans-Himalayan mountains.
A generalist, it is perfectly adapted to the
cold-desert steppe landscape of the Indian
Changthang (22,000 sq. km.) in southern
and south-eastern Ladakh. It shares its
habitat with the wolf, snow leopard, bharal,
Tibetan argali and domesticated livestock.
For nearly two decades, since the Indo-
Chinese border issues in 1962, the kiang,
along with the Tibetan gazelle, another
wild herbivore of the Changthang, were
persecuted for food and both species
had dwindled to almost local extinction in
the Indian Changthang. Surprisingly, while
the Tibetan gazelle has failed to recover
from the decimation, the kiang has made
a comeback. However, the processes
underlying such a seemingly dramatic
species recovery remains poorly understood.
Along with the near cessation of hunting
in the region, is the recovery due to its
generalist food habit or facilitated by the
absence of gazelles from the majority
of their erstwhile habitat or is it due to
variations in wolf abundance? The stark
contrast in the current conservation
status of the kiang and gazelle off ers a
natural experimental platform to analyse
mechanisms of species recovery and failure.More at http://www.sanctuaryasia.com |Photo Essay