China's top Tibet antelope campaigner slain

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Wednesday November 16 China's top Tibet antelope campaigner slain

BEIJING, Nov 16 (Reuters) - China's leading protector of the endangered Tibetan antelope was slain in a remote northwestern province earlier this month, the China Youth Daily reported on Monday.

Zhaba Duojie, deputy Communist Party secretary of Zhidoi county in far western Qinghai province, was gunned down on November 8 at his home in nearby Yushu, the newspaper said, using his Chinese name.

The ethnic Tibetan conservationist's wife had gone to a neighbour's house when she heard three shots from their home and rushed back to find Duojie lying in a pool of blood with a bullet hole below his left ear, the newspaper said.

The killing was believed to be connected to poachers but was still under investigation, it said.

Duojie manned a wildlife protection centre in Hoh Xil, China's largest unpopulated area and home to some of China's most endangered mammals, including the Tibetan antelope, the Tibetan wild donkey and snow leopards.

Located in the northwest corner of the vast Qinghai-Tibet plateau where altitudes average 5,000 metres (16,000 ft), the centre was named after Doje's predecessor, Gyaisang Soinamdaje, who was killed in a fight with poachers four years ago.

The Tibetan antelope, also called the chiru, is prized for the fur around its throat known as shahtoosh, trade in which has been illegal in most of the world since 1976.

Despite its illegal status, shahtoosh "king of wool" shawls, woven in the Indian state of Kashmir, fetch more than $15,000 as a status symbol garment in Europe.

Experts estimate that there are 75,000 to 100,000 Tibetan antelopes left and that as many as 20,000 a year are killed by gangs in China who shoot the animals 500 at a time from vehicles and smuggle the wool to India.

Last month the official Xinhua news agency reported that 14 Tibetan poachers were given prison sentences ranging from three to 13 years and fined 700-15,000 yuan ($84-$1,807) for killing 500 antelope and buying 212 hides last winter in Tibet.

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