Inbreeding has become one of the major factors threatening the
survival of Chinese alligators, a world endangered species.
Chinese alligators near extinction
The number of Chinese alligators has rapidly risen since China
began to artificially breed the rare creatures at the end of the
1980s, but their general health has deteriorated drastically,
according to Wednesday's China Youth Daily.
Based on past research, experts have found that since alligators of
the filial generation began to reproduce, abnormalities have begun
to appear among the newborn, with some being under-sized and
deformed, or having a protuberant cavity in the skull and curved
backbone.
Breaking breeding isolation urged
This has much to do with the inbreeding of Chinese alligators,
experts note.
The paper reports that the Xuancheng Chinese Alligator Breeding and
Research Center, in east China's Anhui Province, released more than
150 Chinese alligators into the wild in 1990 and the number of
alligators in the wild at one stage reached 600.
But a recent survey carried out by the center shows that currently,
fewer than 200 Chinese alligators have survived under the condition
that this is no poaching or any other outside damaging
activity.
At
present, China has two Chinese alligator breeding centers, with
more than 10,000 alligators, one in Xuancheng and the other in
Changxing in east China's Zhejiang Province. The Xuancheng center
alone has over 9,000, the largest group in the world.
The Chinese alligator protection zone covers 433 square kilometers,
with only 41 hectares inhabited by Chinese alligators.
What is worse, experts say, the 41-hectare area has been divided
into 13 small and isolated protection areas. The isolation has
blocked gene exchanges and resulted in serious inbreeding of
Chinese alligators, experts add.
Experts hold that it is imperative to break the isolation and
expand the alligator protection zones, so as to promote mating
between Chinese alligators from different habitats and save them
from extinction.
(
December 12, 2001)