Status of large mammals in the Taxkorgan Reserve, Xinjiang, China

Estimating seasonal density of blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) in the Helan Mountain region using distance sampling methods

“…Mortality in blue sheep is often concentrated during two seasons, winter and spring, and commonly results from severe climate and poor forage availability. From the horns of 72 male blue sheep, Schaller et al (1987) concluded that 8% of deaths were of young individuals (£4 years old) and 92% were of adult ones (>4 years old), whereas, in our study, 39% of deaths were of young sheep and 61% were of adults. We found that many adult sheep had died naturally in the summer and autumn in the Helan Mountains, which was possibly related to increasing life expectancy in 2004 compared with that in 1995 (Wang et al 2005).…”

High connectivity among argali sheep from Afghanistan and adjacent countries: Inferences from neutral and candidate gene microsatellites

“…This suggests that Marco Polo argali populations have relatively high effective population sizes and that our study areas are not yet isolated or inbred, as has been feared (Shackleton 1997;Harris et al 2010). Nonetheless, the significantly lower heterozygosity and allelic richness in Taxkorgan (China) compared to our other study areas suggests this population is smaller (Schaller et al 1987(Schaller et al , 2008, and perhaps relatively more isolated than the other populations. The Taxkorgan population is near the southeastern edge of the range of argali and there is a long fence (350 km) near the Tajik-Chinese border (Schaller et al 2008) that could potentially reduce connectivity of the Chinese argali with other populations in Murghab and the Afghan Pamirs; however it is uncertain if the fence is a barrier because, for example, it is not continuous (e.g.…”

“…In contrast, it is likely that populations in Tajikistan are more contiguous in nature (Weinberg et al 1997). The exact status of Marco Polo argali populations in China is uncertain, although they are known to exist in relatively high numbers in most of the Taxkorgan Nature Reserve in Kashi Prefecture, Xinjiang (Schaller et al 1987;Gong et al 2007;Schaller and Kang 2008).…”

Abundance, distribution and conservation status of Siberian ibex, Marco Polo and Blue sheep in Karakoram-Pamir mountain area

“…Important populations of large ungulates and carnivores, notably Marco Polo sheep and snow leopard (Schaller et al, 1987) provide the foundation for an international protected area in the region (Schaller, 2007). The two ecologically contiguous areas were known to have thousands of Marco Polo sheep and ibex till the midnineties (Roberts, 1999) and were inhibited by Kirgiz, Tajik, and Brosho folks carving out a living from pastoral animals husbandry, utilizing sub-alpine and alpine pastures in a complex pastoral herding system (Knudsen, 1999;Ablimit et al, 2011;Khan et al, 2014a,b).…”