Less than 10,000 wild yaks can be found now in northwestern Qinghai Province as human activities have increasingly been disturbing their habitats, according to the outcome of a latest survey.

The survey by the Provincial Wildlife and Nature Reserve Management Bureau released Monday noted that compared with the early 1960s, the number of yaks on Qinghai plateau has reduced by half and most of them now live in the prefectures of Yushu, Golog and Haixi in the central-south, southeastern and western Qinghai Province.

He Yubang, director of the bureau, said the past wonderful scene of hundreds of wild yaks galloping together no longer exist any more. Now only a dozen can occasionally be found haunting very remote areas.

According to the director, quite a number of haunting places in Qinghai were named right after the wild yak in the past because herds of the leaping animal once appeared there.

These days, however, solely in Wild Yak Ravine around Golmud city, in northwestern Qinghai, can local people sometimes spot the wild yaks in large numbers.

Luo Xiaolin, deputy director of the Qinghai Institute of Animal Husbandry, said the habitats for yaks in Qinghai scatter mainly on the upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River which is 4,000-5,000 above sea level, and the 1.4-million-sq-km cold desert hemmed in by Kunlun, A'erjin and Qilian Mountain ranges.

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2003)