Chinese or Yangtse Alligator (credit: John Thorbjarnarson).
The shy, secretive Chinese alligator is about six feet long—though at one time it may have been longer. It hunts mainly at night, feeding extensively on hard-shelled mollusks, but also fish and occasional birds and rats. During the winter, it hibernates for about six months in a complex burrow system. Historically, these alligators were widespread in slow-moving rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and so on in areas around the lower Yangtze River.
Today there are only about two hundred individuals remaining in the wild, mostly in a 167-square-mile reserve in Anhui Province in eastern China. The main threat to these alligators is loss of their marshland habitat, a great deal of which has been modified for agricultural purposes. And although, with their nocturnal habits, they can often live undetected in farmlands, they are regarded with disfavor by farmers because their burrows cause drainage problems in the fields, and they will take the odd domestic duck if they can. Until recently they were killed when found, but now this is prohibited, and they are mostly left alone since violations can land people in jail.
The Chinese alligator has a staunch advocate in John Thorbjarnarson, who works with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on a program to study and conserve the species. He told me that he grew up in New Jersey and got interested in wildlife as a boy “mucking about in streams, catching frogs and snakes.” He became fascinated by alligators after watching TV documentaries. “I never lost my little-boy interest in reptiles,” he said, and in the 1980s, as a graduate student at the University of Florida, he worked with the American crocodile. But he became enthralled with the Chinese alligator and in 1997 went to China to take part in a survey—a collaboration among the WCS, the Chinese government, and scientists from East China Normal University—focused on learning about the remaining populations.
“We literally visited every known location where alligators remained,” John told me. The results were alarming. “We determined that that the wild population was less than 150, with only three to four nesting females.”
By 2008, two main breeding programs had been established, one at the Anhui Research Centre—the Yangtze River actually runs through the center—and the other in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. Smaller breeding facilities are scattered in a number of zoos around the country. As a result of these efforts, there are now more than ten thousand captive-bred alligators, and the Chinese government has taken steps to protect and restore wild habitats, to create new ones, and to support reintroduction programs. WCS and Chinese colleagues are currently searching for suitable habitats.
The first successful release of three adult alligators took place at Hongxin Pond, a site not far from the Anhui breeding center in the alligator “reserve.” The Anhui government has also been releasing small numbers of alligators into a series of human-made ponds at another site in the reserve.
Hatched in US Zoos and Returned to the Yangtze
Then, John told me, early in 2007 six individuals were released into the preserved and restored freshwater wetlands on Chongming Island. Three others were hatched in US zoos and sent back to China to assist with the reintroduction program and improve genetic diversity.
Students followed the progress of all the released individuals using radio telemetry. The alligators did well initially. They found food, dug burrows, and hibernated. Unfortunately, two subsequently died when they moved from the release site and were caught in fishing nets, but five nests were built that produced young, thus adding a number of juveniles to the population. Still, much work obviously needs to be done before the reintroduction program can be considered successful.
John Thorbjarnarson and Ding Youzhong capture and measure a wild Chinese Alligator (credit: John Thorbjarnarson).
WCS is working with the government on an education program to help more people understand the nature of the alligator and the need to conserve it, but in rural areas where there is great human population pressure, this will not be easy. “The only other large species of wildlife that managed to survive in this region was the Baiji dolphin [the “Chinese dolphin” found in the Yangtze River],” John told me. “And that is now considered extinct. Hopefully this fate will not befall the Chinese alligator.”
In the summer of 2008, John sent me a hopeful update: “The animals that were released on Chongming Island last year made it through one of the worst winters on record for the Shanghai area,” he wrote. “Six more alligators have been released this year in the Gaojinmiao trial site in Anhui—bringing the total released there to 22. The work continues . . .”
