(CN): Chinese lensman shoots to save gazelles

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Link:

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080054054 & ch=6/23/2008\

%209:24:00%20PM

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Chinese lensman shoots to save gazelles*

Associated Press

Monday, June 23, 2008 (Qinghai)

In China's western province of Qinghai, an amateur photographer has been

trying to protect a critically endangered animal through the lens of his

camera and online blogging.

 

Over the past eleven years, Ge Yuxiu has been taking photographs of

Przewalski's Gazelles, a threatened species found only in the area around

China's biggest inland salt lake, Qinghai lake.

 

The few hundred Przewalski's Gazelles that live in the Qinghai lake region

are the threatened few in the world, making the species much rarer

than the Giant

Panda.

 

Although Chinese authorities said the number of gazelles have risen since

the 1980s, the species is still endangered. In 2000, it was listed as one of

the 15 most endangered wild plants and animals in China.

 

It once inhabited flat areas and basins between mountains, and the

semi-desert zones around lakes. But nowadays, the gazelles live in the

grasslands around the Qinghai Lake.

 

The animals are named after a Russian explorer who caught a specimen of the

antlered animal and took it back to St Petersburg in 1875.

 

Ge first saw the animal in November 1997, and he said he was so excited.

 

''I saw seven Przewalski's Gazelles when I was taking pictures of swans, I

was so excited!'' he said, adding, ''I immediately jumped out of the car and

took pictures, even though my 300 millimetre lens was not good enough, I was

very excited.''

 

The 54-year-old amateur photographer has a full-time job in an office in the

government bank's regulatory body, but spends most of his leisure time

taking photographs of the wild animals near Qinghai lake.

 

He once spent a week on an isolated island near Qinghai Lake to take

pictures of birds, and lived off crackers and water. While nature watchers

in the western world are not unusual, in China, his passion for animal

watching is a relatively unknown phenomenon.

 

Over the past eleven years, Ge has taken a total of 40,000 photographs of

wild animals. His one-man mission is to raise public awareness to protect

the animals.

 

He also writes articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs about about the

Przewalski's Gazelles' features and behaviour, and champions public

activities to protect the last hooded mammals.

 

 

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