WILD ANIMALS IN CHINA

Civet

China's varied terrain and habitats supports a wide range of plants, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. China is home to more than a hundred wildlife species found nowhere else in the world, such as the giant panda, the Chinese alligator, the golden monkey, the Yangtze dolphin and chiru. [Source: Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Physical Geography, Gale Group, Inc., 2003]

China lies in two of the world's major zoogeographic regions, the Palearctic and the Oriental. The Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, northeastern China, and all areas north of the Huang He are in the Palearctic region. Central, southern, and southwest China lie in the Oriental region. In the Palearctic zone are found such important mammals as the river fox, horse, camel, tapir, mouse hare, hamster, and jerboa. Among the species found in the Oriental region are the civet cat, Chinese pangolin, bamboo rat, tree shrew, and also gibbon and various other species of monkeys and apes. Some overlap exists between the two regions because of natural dispersal and migration, and deer or antelope, bears, wolves, pigs, and rodents are found in all of the diverse climatic and geological environments. The famous giant panda is found only in a limited area in Sichuan and Gansu Provinces. [Source: Library of Congress, 1987 ]

Animals found in the mountains of central China, Sichuan, Yunnan and Eastern Tibet include the giant panda, red panda, the golden money, white-lipped deer, white-rumped deer , snow leopard, clouded leopard, leopard, Tibetan macaque, rhesus macaque, sambar, goral, serow, burhel, Alpine musk deer, large Indian civet, small Indian civet, lynx, Pallas's cat, Asiatic black bear, pika-eating bear, Himalayan marten and European otter. [Source: Science Museum of China kepu.net.cn

Jackals: can be found in China. They sometimes prey on panda cubs. Chinese say they have a unique hunting skill in which they climb onto the back of their prey, gouge out the eyes first, then snap at the anus and pull the intestines out. For this move they have been dubbed "dig dog".

The Chinese sturgeon has been around for 140 million years. It grows very slowly and was among the first class of animals to be protected in China. Deformities such as one or no eyes and misshapen skeletons and decreasing numbers of rare wild Chinese sturgeon in the Yangtze has been blamed on a paint chemical widely used in Chinese industry.

Wildlife and Hare Hunting in 19th-Century Shandong

"The Qianlong Emperor Hunting Hare" (1755)

In 1899, Arthur H. Smith wrote in “Village Life in China”: “There are parts of the wide province of Shandong, in which there are great sheets of clear and deep water much frequented by water-fowl, especially in the autumn and in the winter. In any Western land these districts would be the paradise of hunters, but here the ducks and the geese go their several ways in “peace and tranquillity along the whole road,” undisturbed by the gun of the sportsman or the pot-hunter. This is due to an old-time custom of the yamên in the Prefectural city contiguous to the largest marshes, of levying a squeeze on the results of the gunner’s toil, a squeeze so comprehensive and virtually prohibitory in its action that water-fowl are practically out of the market altogether. [Source: “Village Life in China” by Arthur H. Smith, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899, The Project Gutenberg]

“There is a record in the life of Dr. Medhurst, one of the pioneer missionaries in China...of a trip which he and a companion made north from Shanghai along the coasts of Shandong. Their plan was to debark from the fishing junk in which they had taken passage, cut across from one headland to another and then rejoin their vessel to repeat the same process farther on. In this way they succeeded in penetrating to a few fishing villages and had conversation with a handful of people all along shore. With charming frankness the historian of this pioneer tour mentions that they nowhere saw any wild animals. We can readily believe him, for even at this advanced stage of extended exploration, the only wild animal that the most experienced traveller is likely to see is the hare, albeit there are sundry others such as weasels, a kind of ground-fox, and the like, which do not obtrude themselves to any extent in public.

In Shandong people sometimes engage hare hunts in which entire villages are involved.“The whole arrangement of this combination hunt is in the hands of a few impecunious fellows who have the right of “protecting” merchants at the great fairs from imposition by other rascals, by means of levying a prophylactic black-mail of their own on a certain day at the principal market of the region. A man who has no single spear of hair on his head passes up and down the crowded lanes of the market, and calls out that on such and such a day there will be an attack by all the people of the “north district” on the hares. This notice is repeated with varied iteration, until the word is comprehended by all those within hearing, each one goes home and tells the rest of the village, and on the set day all are ready for the fray. The reason for having the notice circulated by a bald man exclusively is the eminently Chinese one that in the Mandarin dialect the word for Bald — T‘u — and that for Hare are identical in sound. This circumstance once led to a very singular error on the part of a bright little child of certain foreigners7 living in Shandong. One of the employees of the establishment had been off somewhere on a donkey, and while he was leading it homeward the beast broke away and galloped off. A lad who was cutting grass in the neighbourhood saw the fleeing animal, rushed out and caught it, holding it till the rider came up. On their reaching home the dramatic story was told in the hearing of the lad, and the capture of the donkey was accredited to a little “T‘u-tzŭ” or “Bald-boy.” The foreign child heard the thrilling narrative which he duly retailed at the parental dinner-table, only he translated the name “T‘u-tzŭ” as Hare, the only kind of t‘u-tzŭ of which he had ever heard!

“On the day appointed for the hare-hunt, almost the whole population of the district to be beaten up turn out to help in the sport. They often stand as thick together as soldiers in ranks. The frightened hares go from one side to the other of the wide-spreading ring, but as every one of the human assailants has a stick and many of them have two, the chances of escape for the hare are reduced below zero. It is a law of the game that whoever succeeds in seizing a hare must hold it aloft, and in a loud tone cry out, “I raise it” (chü), after which it is his, and no one can take it from him lawfully. Nevertheless, Chinese human nature is much like the article in other parts of the world, and the results are apt to be serious quarrels, fights, broken heads and limbs and perhaps lawsuits. But with that practical talent for which Chinese officials are distinguished, the Magistrates refuse to hear any case arising from these conditions, so that it is necessary to have them settled, as by far the majority of all Chinese law cases are, out of court by “peace-talkers.”

Tigers in China

Conservationists estimate that there are less than 400 tigers left in China today. These tigers are members of three sub species: Bengal, South China and Northeastern (or Manchurian, similar to the Siberian tiger). The rarest are the South China tigers. The number of Bengal tigers in China is unknown if there are any. They may live in Xishuangbanna Autonomous region in the Yunnan Province along the Myanmar and Laos border. The now extinct Persian tiger once roamed as far east as Xinjiang in western China.

A man named He Guangwei, who lives in Mengxian County on the Yellow River in Henan Province, reportedly made his living by catching tigers and other large animals barehanded using martial arts techniques. In his 50 year career he has reportedly caught 230 leopards, seven tigers, 700 wild boars and 800 wolves. If attacked he advises people to go for the face. "You have to kick the animals quickly and hard in vulnerable places like the ears and belly," he says. "But this usually kills the animal, so I don't do it unless my life is at stake...A quick hard blow will make its eyes water, and it stops to rub them, but the blow must be sharp and accurate — if several blows aren't effective, you're in trouble.”

Although China's wild tiger population is tiny, thousands of the animals are bred in captivity each year. Forestry bureaus are responsible for conservation and receive the bulk of funds related to this end. China's tiger farmers, who have bred more than 5,000 animals, are pushing for a relaxation of the ban on the trade of tiger parts in the hope of selling bones and penises for traditional medicine. Siberian Tiger Forest Park in Harbin has more than 700 Siberian tigers. Part of their “survival training? involves setting loose a calf and then releasing a half dozen tigers to chase it down.

Elephants in China

Asian elephant

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) found in China have a body length of 5.5-6.4 meters, excluding a 1.2-1.5 meter tail, and a height of 2.4-3 meters. They weigh 5000 kilograms and live in tropical forests and areas around such forests. Using their curling, flexible trunk they eat of many kinds of all vegetation. They can be found in South Yunnan. They are regarded as an endangered species.

There are about 300 wild elephants in China. They were once were found as north as Beijing but over the centuries have seen their numbers decline and habitat shrink as result of wars, ivory hunting, the destruction of forests. The last remaining elephants are found in three separate areas squeezed into ever-shrinking habitats sandwiched between rubber plantations, tea farms, rice paddies, highways and development schemes. Although they are generally amiable elephants can sometimes be dangerous. More than 50 people died in incidents involving Asian elephants between 2011 and 2019, according to state media.

A male elephant named Xiguang was captured along the Chinese-Myanmar border by drug smugglers in March 2005 using heroin-laced bananas to pacify the creature, The elephant continue to be fed the bananas and became addicted to heroin. Two months later Xiaguang was captured with six other elephants in southwest China and found to suffering from withdrawal,. He was sent for rehab in a protection center on Hainan Island and was cured of his addiction using daily methadone doses five time larger than those given to humans

China is the largest market for ivory. Much of the ivory from poached elephants in Africa is smuggled into China . Jewelry, chopsticks, and figures made from ivory are widely sold in souvenir shops in southern China. According to animal welfare groups, few Chinese realize that ivory comes from killed elephants. In July 2008, CITES allowed China to import ivory from several African nations.

Wild Cattle in China

There are three species of wild animals with "niu" in their Chinese names: ye niu (gaur), ye maoniu (wild yak) and ling niu (takin). Of them, only gaur and wild yak, are truly wild cattle. The takin, a large, sturdy animal that looks rather like a musk ox, is actually an antelope. [Source: China Daily January 21, 2009]

Once found in central China, extending to the Indian subcontinent through Myanmar and Indochina to the Malay Peninsular, the gaur is the rarest one of the three in China and can only be seen in the southernmost part of Southwest China's Yunnan province. Where gaurs have not been disturbed, they are basically diurnal, being most active in the morning and late afternoon and resting during the hottest time of the day. However, where they have been disturbed by humans, gaurs have become largely nocturnal, rarely seen in the open after 8:00am. During the dry season, herds congregate and remain in small areas, dispersing into the hills with the arrival of the monsoon. While gaurs depend on water for drinking, they do not seem to bathe or wallow. Moreover, when alarmed, they charge off into the jungle with surprising speed.

Deer in China

20080318-Pere david4.jpg
Pere David deer The Chinese water deer stands only 30 inches high. Found in reedy marshes in northeastern China, it is the only deer species that lacks antlers other than the musk deer. Both males and females have long, striking tusks — actually long, sharp upper canine teeth — that drop down out of their mouth. Males use the tusks when they fight. The oldest prehistoric deer had tusks. Horns and antlers were developed later. The Chinese water deer also swims and barks.

The white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris) lives in the shrubberies, meadows of the forest in the high mountains at an altitude above 3500 meters in Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai and Tibet. Good at climbing over the quickstones, crags and cliffs, it often hides itself in the shrubbery on the edge of a forest. White-lipped deer live in groups and move vertically in accordance with the season. They search for food in the morning and evening, feeding mainly on grasses. Its diet also includes tender sprouts. They often rut and mate in September or August. After eight or nine months later, females gives birth to a fawn between May to July. The The white-lipped deer is unique to China. White-lipped deer are found mainly in Qinghai Province and Tibet. On China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals it is listed as a threatened species. [Source: Science Museum of China kepu.net.cn]

White-rumped deer (Ce macneilli) lives in the high mountains at an altitude above 3500 meters in Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. In summer, it goes to the shrubberies of drifting sand while in winter moves down to take shelter from wind in the sunny meadows or a valley. White-rumped deer live in groups. Their diet mainly includes sprouts and tender leaves. They also feed on dry grass and barks in winter. They often rut and mate in September or August. After 230 to 240 days' pregnancy, a white-bumped deer often gives birth to a baby deer at a time between May to July. On China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals, it is listed as a threatened species.

Sambar (Cervus unicolor) are mainly distributed in the broadleaved forest or coniferous forest with an altitude of 1400 to 3500 meters. Arboreal in its habits, sambars often hide themselves in the thick woods and sleep at day time. Living solitarily or in pairs, they only form in groups in mating season. Acute and agile, they are good at runners. Its diet consists of green grass and tree leaves. The mating season of the sambar is between April and June. After about six months' pregnancy, a female sambar generally gives birth to one young. Sambar can be found in mountain areas all over Southern China and the Yangtze basin and are regarded as a threatened but not endangered species. In Yunnan and Hainan Island, people have raised sambars for quite a long time.

20080318-camels cnto.jpg
Bactrian camel The Alpine musk deer (Moschus sifanicus) is mainly distributed in the meadows, grasslands and bare rocks shrubberies with coniferous forests or beside hillcrests. Alpine musk deer live in an altitude of 3000 to 4000 meters. Solitary in nature, they move in a relatively fixed route in the morning or evening. If they find any trace of man, they will find another route. The alpine musk deer does not climb trees. Its diet consists of mountain grass, shrubbery leaves and twigs, mosses and lichen. Its mating season is winter and a pregnant female Alpine Musk Deer often gives birth to two young in June of the following year. An animal peculiar to plateaus. On China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals, it is listed as a threatened species.

Indian Muntjac (Barking Deer, Muntiacus muntjak) have a body length of one meter and a tail length of 17-21 centimeters and weigh 25-30 kilograms. Their preferred habitats are forests and bushes in low altitude mountains and hills. They eat branches, leaves, flowers, fruit, various kinds of f vegetation and crops. Their skin has traditionally been a source of leather in China. For this reason they were widely hunted in South China. In China they can be found in Southeast, South and Southwest China and are not considered threatened or endangered. [Source: Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, kepu.net.cn]

Mouse deer (Tragulus javanicus) have a body length of 42-48 centimeters and a tail of 5-7 centimeters long and weigh 1.2-2 kilograms. They live in dense bush, grasslands, tropical forest and on hills and mountains. They eat leaves, shoots, flowers, fruit and vegetation of various kinds. They can be found in Mengla county of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan and are regarded as an endangered species in China. [Source: Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, kepu.net]

Wild Horses and Bactrian Camels in China

Prezwalski Horses, or Wild Asiatic horses, are the last remaining species of wild horse. They are found almost exclusively in zoos although a few wild ones remain in the remote Altyn Dagh mountains of Xinjiang and some have been reintroduced to Mongolia. See Mongolia. Ancient Juchi and Il in Chinese Turkestan were famous for heavenly horses thought to have been the offspring of dragons and celestial horses.

Wild Bactrian camels inhabit parts of Eurasia and western China. Their geographic range has been steadily decreasing. They are now only found in isolated regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang. There are fewer than 900 wild Bactrian camels remaining in the wild. They live in three small populations: 1) one on the Mongolian-China border; 2) far western China; and 3) in the Kum Tagh desert. They are threatened by poaching, wolves and illegal mining. Some illegal miners have placed explosives at water holes to blow up camels.

Ancestors of domestic camels, wild Bactrian camels are slimmer and less woolly and have smaller conical humps than domesticated Bactrian camels. They stand 1.72 meters (5.6 feet) at the shoulder. Males weigh 600 kilograms (1,323 pounds) and females weigh 450 kilograms. (992) pounds) They eat grasses, leaves and shrubs.

Wild Bactrian camels live on the arid plains, hills and desert in Mongolia and China. They can survive on shrubby plants and no water for 10 days. They follow migratory paths across the desert to oases and feed on tall grasses.

Female Bactrian camels travel in small groups with six to 20 members. Males are often solitary but will unite with a female group in the mating season if strong enough to fend off rivals. During the rutting season males puff out their cheeks, toss their heads, slobber and grind their teeth. Mother Bactrian camels give birth alone. The gestation period is 13 months. Usually one calf, sometimes two, are born. Young can walk almost immediately. After about a month of seclusion mother and young join the group with other females. Young nurse for one to two years.

In 1998, the Chinese government announced that a 42,000-square-mile sanctuary would be set up at Lop Nor nuclear testing sight in Xinjiang Province for rare wild Bactrian camels. About 400 camels live in the area, which supports few other animals. There is no fresh water in the area. The camels have adapted to drinking salt water from salt springs and they eat dry grass and tamarisks that grow around the springs. There is little vegetation or animals, not even birds, which is why it was selected as an area to test 45 nuclear devices, which were detonated underground between 1964 and 1996.

Prezwalski horses

Wild Boars, Once-Protected Become Dangerous Pests in China

Wild boars were once protected animals in China. Now they are considered dangerous pests in many places. In Zhejiang Province, wild boar numbers increased from 29,000 to 150,000 between 2000 and 2010. To keep them from destroying crops and moving into farmland and residential areas farmers make as much noise as possible to scare them away, using vuvuzelas, gongs, karaoke machines, firecrackers and bombs, in addition to electric fences and traps. Hungry boars have moved from their mountain forest homes to forage in farmland and the residential suburbs of Hangzhou. Local officials in Zhejiang say the animal population has increased fivefold in over 10 years because villagers — their main predator — are moving into the cities and gun licences have been restricted. “The growing wild boar population is now a disaster to our village and neighboring ones. We knock on gongs, explode firecrackers and even use bombs, but there are just so many,” one villager told Xinhua. Local media have been filled with warnings of the impact on crops and other species. Corn yields in the worst affected area are expected to fall by one-third because so many plants have been trampled upon. Neighboring Jiangxi province reported a similar problem and issued 7,200 hunting licenses to cull the boar population. In Zhejiang, this has been difficult because the province borders Shanghai, which impoed gun control laws for the Expo in 2010. [Source: Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, September 13, 2010]

Joyce Jiang and Simone McCarthy of CNN wrote: Boars caused damage to property or people in all but eight of China’s 34 provincial-level regions, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) said last January.In Xiji county, where six official bounty hunting teams killed 300 wild boars this fall, the animals inflicted economic losses of over 2 million yuan ($276,200) in 2023 alone, mainly through tearing up farmland, a local official told The Paper, a state-run newspaper.[Source: Joyce Jiang and Simone McCarthy, CNN, January 11, 2025]

In December 2023, a 51-year-old villager from central Hubei province died from blood loss after being bitten by a wild boar, The Paper reported. Three years earlier, a village official suffered a similar fatal boar attack in southwestern Sichuan province, according to the newspaper. Boars have also been seen in urban areas more frequently as their numbers rise and habitat shrinks from China’s rapid urbanization.A wild boar burst into the lobby of a four-star hotel in Nanjing in late October, struggling to escape on the slick floor before security captured it, according to state media reports. Two days earlier, another boar, weighing 80 kilograms, ran amok through a downtown street in eastern Hangzhou, overturning vehicles and rampaging in a local shop.

China’s problem with wild boars dates back over two decades, when people hunted so many of the animals to eat that they became extinct in some areas, according to the state broadcaster CGTN. In response, the government added them to a national protection list in 2000, allowing licensed hunting only in areas where there were too many boars.Over time, almost free from natural predators, the animal’s population surged from some 10,000 to about 2 million, and so did reports of wild boar attacks.

Wild Boar Hunting in China

from "The Middle Kingdom - a survey of the geography, government, education, social life, arts, and history of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants" (1913)

Joyce Jiang and Simone McCarthy of CNN wrote: In the wee hours of an October morning, dozens of dogs chased the hulking figure of an animal scrambling through a forest in northwestern China as a thermal drone whizzed overhead. “The dogs caught it! Just stab it! Stab it!” a drone operator shouted into his walkie-talkie to the hunter, in a video report by a state-linked news outlet. The hunter rushed to the spot where the dogs had cornered the 125-kilogram beast, and thrust his spear into it, killing the animal and securing a reward of 2,400 yuan ($330). He works with one of six “bounty hunting” teams hired by Xiji county in China’s northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In Xiji county, six official bounty hunting teams killed 300 wild boars this fall,[Source: Joyce Jiang and Simone McCarthy, CNN, January 11, 2025]

In recent years, China has authorized teams of bounty hunters to kill wild boars as part of a pilot program to control a pest that’s wreaking havoc on crops and causing accidents, injuries, and even fatalities. In February, the program was expanded to a nationwide cull. The hunters are not allowed to use firearms or poison, but the cull has surprised the public in a country where wildlife protection is tightly regulated.Animal protection groups have criticized the measure as experts debate whether the rise in wild boar attacks justifies killing large numbers of animals, and if hunting is the right solution to mitigate human-wildlife conflict in the world’s second most populous country.

Wild boar hunting’s popularity plummeted after the species came under national protection, though some poachers still risked jail time to kill them for sale in wildlife markets. But demand for boar meat slumped when Beijing imposed what it called an “unprecedentedly strict” ban on wildlife consumption in early 2020.

At the time, the coronavirus pandemic was spreading worldwide and many scientists linked it back to a food market in central China that sold wild meat.One year after the consumption ban, reports of wild boar attacks exceeded 100 for the first time, according to a tally of human-boar conflicts from 2000 to 2021 published in Acta Geographica Sinica, a leading Chinese geographic journal.As social and state media reports of wild boar attacks continued to mount, the central government removed the species from its national protection list in 2023, waiving the need for a license to hunt them.

While many welcomed the policy shift to control the pest, recent high-profile bounty hunting initiatives by local authorities have faced some pushback, igniting debate among experts about how the country should tackle this growing public menace. Members of the state-backed expert group suggested hunters should be allowed to use guns to improve hunting efficiency, as reported by The Paper. They also proposed changing China’s laws to allow people to consume “captured wild boars,” but only after a quarantine process to ensure the meat is safe to eat. However, the group didn’t provide further details on how this would work.Both proposals have raised safety concerns among experts outside the group.

Medium-Size Mammals in China

In India, Bangladesh and China otters have been taught to catch fish for their human owners. The practice has died out In China but is still alive in Bangladesh. In China, raccoon dogs (tanukis) are bred in farms for their raccoon-like fur, which is used to trim coats and other clothing. In 2008, 1,500 raccoons died from eating feed tainted with melamine.

giant black squirrel

The Himalayan marten (Martes flavigula) is mainly found in the river valleys of forested lower mountains, forests of all kinds, as well as coniferous forests with an altitude of 3000 meters. It is often well-concealed and only active in the morning and evening. It becomes alert at hearing any strange noise and then hunts after its game. A solitary carnivore animal, the Himalayan marten mainly hunts small mammals, birds, deer, boars, young giant pandas, as well as wild fruits and seeds. Its mating season is in autumn and a female marten often gives birth to four or five young in each pregnancy. In the On China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals, it is listed as a threatened species.

The European Otter (Lutra lutra) lives mainly in the riverbanks, where it digs tunnels to make its home. Some of the tunnels lead to the water. A nocturnal animal, the otter is good swimmer and diver, because its nostrils and ears can be closed. The otter feeds mainly on fish; but its diet also includes crabs, frogs, and rodents. Its mating season is in spring and summer. After two months' pregnancy, a female otter often gives birth to one to five baby otters in each pregnancy. In the China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals, it is listed as a threatened species.

Black giant squirrels (Ratufa bicolor) have a body length of 40 centimeters and a tail length of 50-60 centimeters and weigh 1000-3000 grams. Their preferred habitats are tropical rainforests and seasonal rainforests They gather food with their forelimbs and mouth and eat fruits, young leaves and stamen. Black giant squirrels spend their time alone or in pairs during daytime and eat selectively. They mate in September and in October. Females five birth to 5 or 6 young at one time. They can be found in South Yunnan. Guangxi and Hainan Island and are regarded as a threatened but not endangered species.

Civets in China

Large Indian civets (Viverra zibetha) have a body length of 60-80 centimeters and their tail are 40-50 centimeters long and weigh 6-10 kilograms. Their preferred habitats are woods, bushlands and grasslands in hills and mountains and catch small animals with their paws and teeth and eat mice, frogs, insects, birds, fruits, roots and stems of some vegetation. Southern Chinese call them "fox cat". They have the habit of defecating in fixed places, thus are commonly called "waste delivery wolf" in China. Adult large Indian civets have secretion glands in their private parts and their secretion have foul smells. When they encounter enemies, they spray large amount of secretions to defend themselves. This secretion are usually called civetta, which are often used in perfume industry as perfume fixing agent to make the good smell of the perfume last longer. In some places, people raise them to get their civetta. They can be found in many provinces of China, particularly southern China, including Jiangsu, West Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Shanxi and Hainan. They are regarded as threatened not endangered species.

The Small Indian Civet (Viverricula indica) is mainly found in the medium or lower mountains and deep valleys of East and Southeast Sichuan Basin. Small Indians Civets live in the forest and bushes. Solitary in nature and nocturnal in habit, they make their home in caves. They are also good climbers and often move in places near brooks. On China’s National List for Specially Protected Wild Animals, it is listed as a threatened species.

Bingturong (Arctictis binturong) have a body length of 70-80 centimeters and a tail of 70-80 centimeters long and weigh 11-13 kilograms. Their preferred habitats are dense tropical rainforest and seasonal monsoon rainforest They often are solitary. They move around in big and tall trees and are good at climbing. Their tail is quite flexible and can coil on branches during climbing. They mostly move around in early morning or at dusk. They catch small animals with their paws and teeth and eat wild fruits, insects and small birds. They can be found in Xishuangbanna of Yunnan and Guangxi in China. They are regarded as an endangered species. [Source: Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, kepu.net]

Red and White Giant Flying Squirrels — The World’s Largest Flying Squirrels

Red and white giant flying squirrel (Petaurista alborufus) are a very large, dark rufous-red rodent in the Sciuridae family found in forests at altitudes of 800–3,500 meters (2,600–11,500 feet) in mainland China and 1,200–3,750 meters (3,940–12,300 feet) in Taiwan. The ones found in Taiwan are distinctive and likely a separate species, the Taiwan giant flying squirrel (P. lena). The range of red and white giant flying squirrel may extend into northeastern South Asia and far northern Mainland Southeast Asia. These squirrel live in a large area and are relatively common, and thus recognize by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a species of "least concern". [Source: Wikipedia]

Red and white giant flying squirrel in Taiwan

Red and white giant flying squirrels have called the largest flying squirrels in the world, although a few other species are of similar size and match at least some of its dimensions. The head-and-body length of red and white giant flying squirrels is 35 to 58 centimeters (14 to 23 inches) and their tails are 43 to 61.5 centimeters (16.9–24.2 inches) long. One source lists their weight as 1.2 to to 1.9 kilograms (2.7– to 4.25 pounds). One red and white giant flying squirrel weighed in 4.29 kilograms (9.46 pounds), by far the highest reported for any gliding mammal, Other flying squirrels with similar head-and-body and total lengths are the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, red giant flying squirrel and woolly flying squirrel,.

Red and white giant flying squirrels spend the daytime sleeping in tree hollows, emerging at night to forage in the trees. Their diet consists primarily of nuts and fruits, but also includes leafy vegetation, insects and their larvae. They can glide as far as 400 meters (1,300 feet) using their the patagium — the skin between their limbs. Before taking off, flying squirrels bob and rotate their heads to gauge the route, and then leap into the air, spreading their patagia between cartilaginous spurs on their wrists and ankles. Small adjustments to these spurs give them some control over their speed and direction. Their flattened tails aid in steering. As their destination nears, they pull upright, prepare their padded feet to cushion the shock of impact, and ready their sharp claws to grip the bark. Gliding is an efficient way to travel but maneuverability in the air is limited. By keeping nocturnal habits, flying squirrels avoid predation by more skilled fliers, such as hawks and eagles. Owls, however, may still be a threat.

On the Chinese mainland, red and white giant flying squirrels have dark rufous-red upperparts with a large buff or straw-colored patch on the lower back. The throat and head are white, often with a large rufescent patch around each eye, and the underparts are orange-brown. Depending on mainland subspecies, the feet are blackish or reddish, and the distal two-thirds of the tail can be blackish or russet with an orange-brown or whitish ring at its base. The Taiwanese subspecies has a white head with a narrow or no clear eye-ring, all-dark rufous upperparts and tail (no pale patch on lower back or ring on tail), and all-white underparts.

Rat Explosions and Mice Attack in China

In some parts of China there has been huge population explosions of rats, so many that naturalists worry about their impact on forests and grasslands. By some estimated rats have damaged 1.4 million hectare of land and some worry they could trigger an outbreak of the plague.In March 2006, the Chinese government said it would spend $1 billion to repel the invasion of rats that was infesting wetlands on the Tibetan plateau. In the previous decade rats had destroyed one third of the grass lands in the massive Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve in remote western Qinghai Province, exacerbating erosion around the world’s highest and largest wetland. The rats damaged the grasslands by eating the grass, digging holes and turning the earth, transforming pastures into wetlands.

In the summer of 2007, the combination of a long drought followed by floods produced an infestation of mice around Dongting Lake in Hunan Province that destroyed thousands of acres of crops and damaging important dikes by burrowed through them to reach crops. By some estimated 2 billion eastern field mice — known locally as rats — overran 22 counties around the lake. .

The were reports of houses in Hunan being inundated with mice driven from their holes by flood waters. A farmer woke up one morning to find his fields destroyed by mice told the Washington Post, “You can hear them as they bite the rice — chir, chir chir. It’s deafening.” Another said, “You can easily step on them just by walking on the road, the are so many.”

A massive mice cull was conducted and people were put on the alert for rodent-caused disease. Efforts to poison them worked to some degrees by also killed cats, dogs, cows, chickens and pigs. Television footage showed residents of Yoyang city beating mice to death with clubs and shovels. Others were caught with fishing nets and drowned and poisoned. Over a five week period 2.3 million mice — 90 tons of them — were killed. . Most were buried in deep pits under layers of lime o prevent the spread of disease.

A drought that lasted through much of the fall, winter and spring, reduced the water levels in Lake Dongting Lake around the cities of Bianhu and Yueyand in Hunan, producing condition ideal for mice breeding. When the gates of the sluice on Three Gorges Dam were opened to relieve flooding water from the Yangtze poured into the lake, causing the mice to flee for high ground. Witnesses said the scene was like a movie about the Apocalypse.

Overpopulations of mice are also being blamed on the harvesting of snakes for food. Snakes can consume up to 400 mice year. To prevent a rat infestation in the future around Dongting Lake there is some discussion of erecting a 40-kilometer-long, one meter-high wall to keep the rats out. Environmentalists say human activity, namely those that have led to a decrease in natural enemies of rats such as snakes and owls, around the lake is the primary cause of the rat problem.

Image Sources: 1) Kostich; 2) Wild Alliance; 3) AAPA; 4) Tooter for Kids; 5, 6) China Alligator Fund; 7) Blogspot; 8, 9) China Science Academy; 10 Environmental News11) CNTO, Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, CNTO (China National Tourism Administration) David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2025