On the Frontlines of the Battle to Save the Tibetan Antelope

Zhawa Dorjentended to save the two fawns with powdered milk.

The battlefield is 45,000 square kilometers vast and 5,000 meters above sea level - a desolate, no-man's land called Kekexili, on the Tibetan highlands in Qinghai province. It takes the anti-poaching team weeks to make just one sweep through this unforgiving, uninhabitable land where the average temperature is a bone-numbing -4 degrees Celsius and can plummet to -40 degrees.

"I don't fear the poachers, but I do fear Mother Nature," said Zhawa Dorje, the head of the anti-poaching team that is affectionately called the "Wild Yak Brigade." "In Kekexili, you can go for hundreds of kilometers without seeing a single soul. If the weather suddenly turns or if the jeep gets stuck and you can't get it out, you could very easily die there."

Zhawa Dorje, a Tibetan, came to Beijing last September at the invitation of FON, China Central Television and the magazine "Green Weekend" to promote efforts to protect the ecology of Kekexili and to stop the mass slaughter of the Tibetan antelope. On that occasion, Zhawa Dorje brought with him about 100 rolls of film -- photographs taken over the course of several years of anti-poaching efforts - that the anti-poaching squad was too poor to get developed. FON's office staff developed the film and selected several hundred to reprint. About a hundred were exhibited at the FON office, and we reproduce a small selection here.

Kekexili is home to some two dozen endangered and protected animals, including the Tibetan antelope, wild yak, wild ass, white-lipped deer and snow leopard. Following the discovery of gold in Kekexili in 1984 close to 30,000 prospectors made their way into the area. Not only did they engage in illegal mining, but they also killed Tibetan antelope, wild yaks and other endangered and protected species. According to rough estimates, the number of wild animals in Kekexili was reduced by tens of thousands between 1984 and 1992.

Tibentant antelopes carcasses (all skinned)

Poachers in imported jeeps can keep up with a herd of Tibetan antelope on the run, shooting and killing more than 500 at a time. At first, poachers did their hunting in winter, When the ground was hard and more passable. As the trade in shahtoosh grew ,they began hunting in summer as well, when female antelope gather in large flocks. Heavily pregnant does cannot run as fast and make easy targets. And for every mother antelope that is killed by poachers, a fawn also dies because antelope do not foster other's offspring.Often, even after a doe has been killed and skinned, her fawn still circles her body crying and trying to nurse.

On a visit in the summer of 1998, wildlife photographer Xi Zhinong came upon 29 antelope carcasses, of which 15 were of fawns, shortly after entering Kekexili. In just one day, Xi found 11 sites where antelope had been killed and skinned.

In July 1992, Zhiduo Prefecture, of which Kekexili is a part, established a special team headed by Gisang Sonam Dorje to protect Kekexili's natural resouras. In a year's time, Sonam Dorje made 12 patrols of Kekexili and captured poachers on eight occasions.

On Nov 18, 1994, Sonam Dorje came upon 18 poachers with some 2,000 Tibetan antelope skins. A gunbattle ensued and Sonam Dorje was killed. When his body was found in -4O degree temperatures, it was frozen solid. He died with one hand on his rifie, the other hand pulling on the rifle bolt. He was 4O year old.

"Every time Sonam Dorje went into Kekexili, he went in prepared to die. For years, he had been calling for Kekexili to be put under (environmental) protection. He'd written so many reports, but they went nowhere - like stones falling into the ocean. So he had no choice but to try to do it on his own. He said, "In China a few people must always die in order to get anything done. So, if people are going to die, let me be among the first." This is how Suonan Dajie's secretary, fighting back tears, described the man that locals now consider a hero.

poachers

Sonam Dorje's mission was taken up by his brother-in-law Zhawa Dorje. In four years, the "Wild Yak Brigade" under Zhaba's leadership arrested 250 suspected poachers and confiscated 60 guns, more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 57 motor vehicles and 3,717 skins and pelts of various animal. The team had the simplest of equipment - fewer than 10 rifles, all borrowd, and three old jeeps. They slept and ate outdoors, climbed over glaciers and waited out poachers in the snow on the bitterest days, the squad members huddle against the jeep engine for warmth and use it to heat their food.

Zhawa Dorje said that the anti-poaching squad's greatest and most urgent need is to set up a refueling station in the heart of Kekexili so that the team has a place to refuel, stock up on food and other provisions and rest up before continuing with its patrols. Currently, the squad must return to the frontier town of Golmud, where they are under observation by the poachers. As soon as the poachers see the squad making preparations, they know that the anti-poaching team is setting off on another patrol. In the same way, they know when the patrol is completed and the team has returned to Golmud - and that is when the poachers set off into Kekexili to start their hunt for the Tibetan antelope.

FON had earlier called for the establishment of a "FON Nature Preservation Station" in Kekexili. Some FON members have already contributed finance to this cause. When Zhawa Dorje made known the need for a refueling station, FON decided to make that the first step in the establishment of the FON Preserve. By November 1998, more than 10,000 RMB had already been raised for this cause, but this far from the total funds needed to build the refueling station. FON is again appealing to its membcrs to make whatever donation they can to this worthy cause. Donors' names well be lested in a book that will be kept in the refueling station.

** Editor's Note: On November 11, 1998, Zhawa Doje was found dead from a gunshot wound in his home in Qinghai. He was 47. His body was given the traditional Tibetan "sky burial." The death was ruled a suicide.

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