Dr. Schaller, who visited the Tibetan Plateau in April 2003, reports that the local population of the above-mentioned species have grown compared to the surveys he had conducted ten years ago around the Changtang Reserve, an enormous wildlife sanctuary established in 1993 by the WCS and the local government.

According to Dr. Schaller, the first international researcher to be granted access to the Metdog Region in southeastern Tibet by the Chinese government, the population of chiru has risen from an estimated 3,900 in 1991 to 5,890, while that of wild donkeys has jumped from 1,224 to 2,241.

The Tibetan gazelle population grew from 352 to 487, and the number of wild yaks jumped from 13 to an estimated 187-plus.

Scientists with the Tibet Autonomous Regional Forestry Department, prestigious Beijing University and Shanghai-based East China Normal University also participated in the field survey.

While Dr. Schaller was conducting his survey in Tibet a decade ago, poaching was rampant, particularly in the case of chiru, whose wool is used to make shahtoosh shawls, sold illegally in the United States and Europe.

Ten years later, Schaller says that Tibet's Forestry Department has clearly made conservation and protection of wildlife a priority.

"The protection of wildlife in the autonomous region has greatly improved over the past decade. Patrols search for poachers, hunting guns and other related weaponry have been confiscated, and education has created awareness about wildlife laws among nomads and local officials," said Dr. Schaller. He added, "the Tibet Autonomous Regional Forestry Department has obviously made a dedicated and successful effort to protect wildlife in the area."

Dawa Cering, director of the Tibet Project of the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), said that the competition between wild animals and domestic livestock has begun to trouble local people.

Thousands of wild donkeys have nibbled away large patches of grassland, leaving domestic livestock without much grazing land to subsist on. Bengal Tigers have even attacked domestic animals in some Tibetan regions, and local nomads have to raise pigs to feed these tigers, according to the WWF official.

Dr. Schaller also warned that with wildlife populations stable or on rise, Tibet's Forestry Department now have to indulge in protection efforts to ease conflicts with the growing human population in the area.

At present, the WCS has identified other more detailed solutions to better protect wildlife in Tibet and is looking forward to working still more closely with Tibet's Forestry Department toward this end.