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John Hare's 2011 Expedition
Wild Camels
I
have just returned from the expedition in China which Prince Albert of
Monaco's Foundation for endangered species and Ran Fiennes's Transglobe
Expedition Trust generously supported. The expedition consisted of two
separate stages.
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Stage
One:
There were with me on this stage two Chinese scientists, Professor Yuan
Guoying and Yuan Lei, who have worked with me on wild camel conservation for
over 16 years. We travelled up the Keriya River, which stretches 250 miles
from the town of Keriya to the south of the Taklamakan Desert and the Kunlun
Mountains. These mountains form the northern escarpment of Tibet, and border
the vast Taklamakan sand dune desert - the largest in the world. The purpose
of this investigation was to follow up a report that wild camels had been
seen near the point where the Keriya River finally drains into the desert
sands. We reached the end of the river having interviewed herdsmen and
elders along the way and made our final investigations at the village of
Dariya. After thorough research the conclusion we reached is that there are
definitely herds of wild camels in the Taklamakan (possibly three) and their
total number varies between 30 and 50. As the Xinjiang government had not
allowed us to proceed further with domestic camels into the vast area of
Taklamakan sand dunes because of our proximity to oil prospecting, we had to
terminate out investigations at Dariya - but our findings are highly
significant. These 30- 50 wild camels are outside the area of the Lop Nur
Wild Camel National Nature Reserve which our UK registered charity, The Wild
Camel Protection Foundation, helped the Chinese government to establish in
2002 after initiating four previous surveys. Our next task is to work out
how best to protect them. It is impossible to create a new Reserve among
shifting dunes of sand, so we are concentrating on awareness-raising locally
and specific education programmes for local schools.
Stage Two:
I
travelled with 15 domestic camels with Yuan Lei and four Kazakh herdsmen on
a 305 mile journey over two huge barriers of sand dunes from the Hongliugou
valley to Lapeiquan Spring. The route we took had not been attempted before
and we were slightly unnerved to find we were faced with sand dunes over 400
metres high, one of which took over 2 hours to cross. The complete journey
lasted just under three weeks. We encountered two sand storms of
considerable intensity and our head Kazakh herdsman (one of four) had his
right arm removed from its socket by a kick from a camel. The arm was
manipulated by the other three herdsmen and went back into place with a
resounding 'plop' amidst a grind of gristle. Another Kazakh suspended
himself by one leg on a rope upside down for half an hour to cure as he said
'a swollen knee.'
We reached the spring of Kum Su which we had 'discovered' in 1999 and which
is a spring deep below the level of the desert sands and which contained not
only fresh water but a naive population of wildlife - wildlife which had
never experienced the machinations of man. On returning there in 2005 from
the east, we discovered that the spring had been polluted by illegal gold
miners using potassium cyanide. On my return to England in 2005 I protested
through various channels (the Chinese Embassy in London, the Ministry of the
Environment in Beijing, the National Geographic and the RGS) to the Chinese
Government who said they would clean up the pollution. It was a huge relief
to find that they had kept their promise, cleaned up the spring and that the
wildlife was returning. But of course they are no longer naive and are now
only too aware of what a rapacious species 'man' is.
Lastly and by no means least, we spotted 128 wild camels out of a Chinese
total population of 600 which by any standards is encouraging. However, we
are concerned that very few two-year-old and three-year-old camels were
sighted due, we believe, to an increase in the wolf population. This has
ccurred because the Chinese government has forbidden herdsmen to carry
shotguns to protect their flocks from predators in the interests of
'security'.
Conclusions:
The Chinese provincial government in Xinjiang considers our expedition to
have been a great success - and so do I.
1. We confirmed that there were 30 - 50 wild camels in the Taklamakan
desert.
2. We pioneered a previously unmarked route over huge sand dunes and proved
it was negotiable.
3. We saw 128 wild camels
4. We discovered that Kum Su spring had been cleaned up by the Federal
Government.
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