Under the Giant Panda's Umbrella
by Susan Lumpkin and John Seidensticker

We looked dubiously at the rotting stairs that led to the second story of the abandoned barn, then started to climb. If an 800-pound takin could negotiate the steep steps without putting a foot through a board, then so could we. Shreds of matted dirty gold fur and piles of marble-sized pellets on the barn’s second floor confirmed what we’d only half-believed: Takin really were finding shelter in the derelict structure’s attic.

A mile or so from the barn, which slouched not far from the headquarters of China’s Tangjiahe Reserve, the footpath along the river dwindled away. Only a takin trail snaked along the rugged valley slope. Scrambling clumsily, it was clear why no takin would retreat from a set of stairs. Despite their massive size, thickset build, and gawky appearance, takins can tiptoe up and down the most precipitous of tracks and leap from crag to crag like ballet dancers across a stage. Takins can even balance on their hind hooves to nibble on vegetation eight feet above ground. This animal’s generic name--Budorcas--reflects this contradiction between ungainliness and grace: It means oxlike gazelle.

The takin-- (Budorcas taxicolor) --is just one of several spectacular species that share the giant panda’s remote and rugged landscape if not its celebrity. Others include serow, tufted deer, golden monkeys, and several species of pheasant. Leopards, clouded leopards, wild dogs, musk deer, and Asiatic black bear also make appearances. While giant pandas receive all the attention, conservationists are quietly working to save some of these less acclaimed but equally endangered animals and their habitats.

This area of China is embedded within Conservation International’s "Hengduan Mountains of South Central China Hotspot." CI has identified 25 regions as being the highest priority for conservation action and investment. These hotspots possess high biological diversity and high levels of endemism--that is, species found there and nowhere else. The giant panda, for instance, is endemic to central China. The hotspots themselves are also considered fragile, and highly threatened.

In Wolong Reserve, the best studied of this region’s parks, live some 93 species of mammals, 275 species of birds, 20 reptiles, 17 amphibians, and nine fishes. For comparison, Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the eastern United States, which is the same size as Wolong (about 775 square miles), supports about 62 mammal species, 230 birds, 35 reptiles, 34 amphibians, and 85 fish. Both of these protected areas fall into the World Wildlife Fund’s Global 200 list of priority ecoregions; both are considered among the world’s most diverse temperate forests.

Plants in the two regions are surprisingly similar. Walking among rhododendrons, dogwoods, oaks, and firs, we felt as at home in the Sichuan forests as we do in the forests of Rock Creek Park in our own backyard. Some are familiar because many of our flowering ornamentals hail from these forests, including varieties of azaleas, lilies, and peonies. Wild peonies are threatened in China, where people use their roots as medicine.

Others evoke home to us because there are a significant number of species pairs or larger species groups that inhabit both eastern Asia and eastern North America. A French Jesuit first remarked on this pattern in 1716, when he discovered American ginseng (Panax sp.) near Montreal after reading about Chinese ginseng. Ever since then, biologists have puzzled over this phenomenon, because such a large distance divides these closely related species, with no relatives connecting them. (It even has a name, the "Asa Gray disjunction," after the 19th-century Harvard University botanist who was a leading proponent of his friend Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Gray’s description of the close affinities between the plants of eastern Asia and eastern North America was cited as key evidence of the theory.) Scientists now suspect that forests stretched continuously across North America, Europe, and northern Asia, connected by Bering Sea and North Atlantic land bridges. When rising sea levels submerged the land bridges and colder, drier conditions came to prevail across parts of this expanse, some plants disappeared from western North America and western Eurasia but remained in East Asia and eastern North America.

About 4,000 different species of plants grow in Wolong Reserve, of about 12,000 in the region, including about 245 that are rare or endangered. The endangered dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), for instance, was discovered by Chinese scientists only in 1941. Found in the wild only in a few mountain valleys, it is considered a living fossil--the last of a once much larger group of trees. A unique deciduous conifer, it grows rapidly to reach 70 to 100 feet. Some seeds were planted in the United States and Europe in 1947, and today dawn redwoods are widely grown ornamentals. Several grow in Beaver Valley at the Zoo.

The region harbors another sweet resource: It is home to the wild ancestors of many of our favorite fruits, including apples, pears, plums, and cherries. There is a growing recognition of the importance of conserving wild varieties of domestic crops as a source of genetic material. Wild species may carry genes that confer resistance to disease, for example.

Botanizing through giant panda country may be more rewarding than wildlife watching, at least for people like us with only a few hours on a couple of cool November days to spend in those woods. The Tangjiahe Reserve boasts a small natural history museum, its specimens tantalizing us with what we might see. But takins were our only reward. This is a wild place that rewards patient vigilance over days and weeks, but like all such spots, it carries an aura of impending surprise. Around any curve in the trail, behind any bush, through any screen of leaves, you might confront some rare and wonderful creature.

Like a takin. A takin might pass for a weird, impossible cross between a moose, a cow, and a bear. In fact, the takin’s closest cousin is the musk ox. And, although sometimes called golden-fleeced cows, takins are more closely related to sheep and goats than to bovines.

Takins inhabit rugged, mountainous terrain, ranging from 4,000 to 14,000 feet, where they break trails--really narrow ruts--in dense thickets of rhododendron and bamboo to travel between foraging areas. They migrate vertically, moving from high-elevation alpine habitats in the summer to forested valleys in the winter. Menus change with the seasons, too, according to what is available to eat. Zoologist George Schaller, who observed these animals during his study of giant pandas in China, documented the catholic food habits of takins. According to Schaller, "Takins eat almost any plant within reach of their broad mouths," including the tough leaves of evergreen rhododendron and oak, willow and pine bark, horsetails, bamboo leaves, and a variety of more succulent, new-growth leaves and herbs. Takins in one herd ate 27 different items while foraging through a single field.

Schaller also noted an unusual feature of the takin’s social system. Groups of young takin--Schaller saw up to 16--are often tended by just one baby-sitting female while the other mothers forage and socialize. In general, takin society appears fluid. While females and youngsters live in groups, males are generally solitary, but may associate with a group of females and young, or with other males. Groups of ten to 35 animals were seen, but sometimes these groups coalesced into a larger herd of 100 or more. A salt lick is often the magnet that attracts such large groups.

Even a large group of takins dotting a distant slope can easily be overlooked in the dense vegetation. Through binoculars at dusk, we squinted to resolve pale golden specks into large furry ungulates on the cliff across the river. Only their measured movements gave them away. In this part of China today, predators able to take down an adult takin--such as leopards, wild dogs, and tigers--are scarce or have been extirpated. At higher elevations, snow leopards, with their adaptations for hunting prey in rugged mountainous habitat, may kill takins. The takins here are wary nonetheless, perhaps fearing the human predator.

Local people hunt takin for their highly prized meat, and poaching is reducing their numbers throughout the species’s range. Just the day before in Wanglang Reserve, not more than a few miles from headquarters, we had almost tripped over a poacher carrying the carcass of a takin through the forest.

Deforestation has also taken its toll on takin, as it has on most wildlife. Two of the four subspecies of takin are found only in central China, a range roughly overlapping that of giant pandas. One of the subspecies--the golden takin (B. t. bedfordi)--is listed as endangered, while the Sichuan takin (B. t. tibetanai) is listed as vulnerable by the World Conservation Union. Two other subspecies’ ranges are in the Himalaya, including parts of Burma, Tibet, Bhutan, and India. Of these, the Bhutan takin (B. t. whitei) is considered vulnerable, and the Mishmi takin (B. t. taxicolor) is endangered. China extends the takin its highest level of legal protection: Like the gianda panda, the takin is officially a national treasure.

Although little known, serow (Capricornus sumatraensis) are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical Asia, including the mountains of Sichuan. Serow are relatively small ungulates, weighing up to 300 pounds, with long tasseled ears, short sharp horns, and short solid hooves. The Chinese name for the serow means "cliff donkey," but serow are related not to donkeys, but rather to mountain goats and chamois. These fairly solitary animals live on cliffs and on brush-covered mountains between 3,000 and 12,000 feet, where they have been described as "adept at dashing wildly down impassible precipices." Serow are thought to be selective browsers on leaves and other plant parts, but few particulars are known about their food habits, or, indeed, about other aspects of their behavior and ecology.

More Gold

Another of China’s endangered treasures is the golden snub-nosed monkey (Pygathrix roxellana), which ranges from the high mountain forests of Sichuan to the Tibetan border. One of just a handful of primates adapted to life in a temperate climate, these beautiful long-haired monkeys sport orange fur on much of their body and pale-blue patches above the eyes and nose. One observer wrote, "...their nose looks as if a bright blue butterfly was sitting with its wings open in the middle of their face...."

The arboreal golden monkeys are leaf-eaters, but supplement their diet with fruit, seeds, insects, birds, and bird eggs. Large troops of up to 600 individuals have been reported, but where their habitat is disturbed, troops may number only 30 to 100 monkeys. The troops are subdivided into small groups composed of one adult male, about five adult females, and their offspring. Little more is known about the lives of golden monkeys. One well-known fact, however, is that they are vulnerable to extinction. Long hunted for their fur, which is fashioned into coats, and for other body parts used in traditional medicine, golden monkeys are offered China’s highest level of protection, the same as giant pandas, and hunting is forbidden. These primates, which are estimated to number between 6,000 and 14,000 individuals, remain threatened by continued habitat fragmentation and destruction.

Diverse Deer

Deer of several kinds find homes in central China. Tufted deer (Elaphodus cephalophus) little resemble the familiar American white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Tufted deer stand just 25 inches at the shoulder, and the male’s very small, unbranched antlers are almost completely hidden by tufts of hair on the forehead. Males also possess undeer-like long, sharp canine teeth that extend like small tusks or fangs over the bottom lip. Male tufted deer probably use these canines in fights with other males, just as male muntjac (Muntiacus sp.)--another small deer found in panda habitat--use their similarly long canines in fights over territory and females. Tufted deer live at altitudes up to about 15,000 feet in high valley and mountain forests.

Musk deer (Moschus sp.) live in giant panda habitat too. Five species of musk deer (some experts say four, others six) live in various parts of China; two overlap with giant pandas. Slightly smaller than tufted deer and muntjacs, musk deer lack antlers entirely, but their fangs grow up to three inches long (think of them as dracula deer). The word musk derives from an old Indian word for testicles, and refers to the glands enclosed in sacs found near the male musk deer’s genitals. The scent of the secretions of these glands--musk--may attract females for mating. People have hunted these deer for their prized musk for centuries to use in perfumery and in traditional medicine. Musk is still an ingredient in 300 to 400 manufactured medicines, although most musk used in perfumery is now synthetic. TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade watchdog, estimates that China alone may use as much as a ton of musk annually. And with each gland containing only tiny quantities of musk, it may take as many as 100,000 male musk deer to meet this quota. As a result of hunting and poaching, coupled with habitat loss, musk deer are considered near threatened, and efforts are underway to reduce both legal and illegal harvesting and trade of musk. What’s more, giant pandas are sometimes snared in traps set for musk deer, creating another hazard for the beleaguered bears.

Found only in a small area in central China and Tibet, the 300-pound white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris) resemble white-tails but are adapted for life in high-elevation habitats. Like takin, white-lipped deer can easily climb rocks and negotiate steep slopes. Males sport huge racks during the breeding season: Their multi-tined antlers may extend more than four feet tall and weigh 15 pounds. This species is considered vulnerable by the World Conservation Union, but it may number as many as 100,000 individuals. These deer are farmed in China, where their velvet antlers--the stage before the antlers turn bone-hard--are used in traditional medicine.

Fantastic Flyers

Wakening early in Wanglang, we hear the calls of pheasants that comprise part of the characteristic soundscape. The mountains of central China are home to nine of the world’s 48 species of pheasant, including four species found nowhere else. These large, forest-dwelling game birds are best known for the often spectacular plumage of males. While female pheasants’ drab markings in shades of brown and gray blend into the colors of the forest, male markings are like bright beacons, with bold patterns in brilliant colors. The males of two of central China’s pheasant species are among the gaudiest: Lady Amherst’s pheasants (Chrysolophus amherstiae), also known as flower pheasants, shine with patches of crimson, yellow, orange, blue, and metallic green. Golden pheasants (C. pictus) glitter with a long, bright-yellow crest and crimson underparts, and spots of green and blue and more red and yellow on their band and tail.

Other Sichuan pheasants include Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii) and the white-eared pheasant (Crossoptilon crossoptilon)--both of which can be seen at the Zoo--as well as Reeve’s long-tailed pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesi) and the endangered Chinese monal (Lophophorus lhuysi). All of the pheasant species, which with one exception live naturally only in Asia, are threatened. They are good to eat and have been intensely hunted throughout their range. As sedentary ground nesters and feeders, they are vulnerable to habitat destruction and the impact of livestock, such as goats, which compete with them for food.

Across the border in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi Province, the last crested ibises (Nipponia nippon) in the world cling precariously in patches of pine forest. These beautiful wading birds were widespread until the mid-1800s, breeding in southeast Siberia, northeast and central China, North Korea, and Japan. But shooting, logging of pine woodlands, and fertilizers and pesticides fouling rice paddies and wetlands where they feed on insects, amphibians, crustaceans, and fish all took a devastating toll. They disappeared in Siberia, North Korea, and most of China. Japan’s last five birds were captured from the wild in 1980, but the breeding program failed. In 1999 and again in 2000, two ibises sent to Japan from China to revive the program produced a chick, bringing Japan’s captive ibis population to four. Only in Shaanxi did wild birds hang on, and, thanks to Chinese conservation efforts, this population has grown from as few as seven to a few dozen or more today. Some are also in conservation breeding programs in China. In total, about 50 ibises remain.

Predators

With such a banquet of potential prey, it’s no surprise that many species of carnivore lurk in the forests of central China. Tigers have been extirpated, perhaps leopards as well. But five other cats still hunt in parts of the region. Small Pallas’s cats (Otocolobus manul) with snub noses and lush golden fur slink among rocks at high elevations. Husky Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) probably live on roe deer, while agile snow leopards (Uncia uncia) stalk blue sheep. Clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) have lived here in the recent past, and may still. Eight kinds of mustelids including river otters (Lutra lutra), hog badgers (Arctonyx collaris), and tiny least weasels (Mustela nivalis) find niches here, too.

And then there are wolves (Canis lupus), dholes (Cuon alpinus), two species of fox (Vulpes ferrilata and V. vulpes), and two more bears, the Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) and brown bears (U. arctos). Some scientists speculate that giant pandas couldn’t compete with all of these carnivores and had to give up a meatier diet and eke out an existence on the meager fare of bamboo. Red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) also dropped out of the race and take advantage of the same bamboo that giant pandas do.

And People

Driving between Wanglang and Tangjiahe, we travel through isolated farms and small villages, through growing towns and the bustling but smallish city of Pingwu. This region feels rural and remote, like Idaho, or the past. But the farmhouses perched on defiles are festooned with satellite dishes capturing television signals amid the drying garlands of red peppers and pale yellow corn on the cob. Nowhere is truly faraway anymore, so we can no longer think of wildlife and wild lands surviving in some pristine, people-free place.

The fate of all of the wildlife and wild lands of central China is tied to the future of giant pandas, which act as umbrellas to shelter the lesser known inhabitants of the ecoregion. So is the fate of the millions of people living there who depend on the natural resources of the area as completely as the other creatures with which they share it.

ZooGoer 30(1) 2001. Copyright 2001 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.



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