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Baby Steps: Chinese Alligators Making

来源：网络发布时间：2009-07-29

　　Baby Steps: Chinese Alligators Making a Comeback
　　Fifteen newly hatched Chinese alligators offer hope that the threatened species might make a comeback.
　　The babies mark the first reproductive success of a seven-year struggle to reintroduce the Chinese alligator on Chongming Island, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River in China. Although the alligator used to roam over much of eastern China, commercial development along the Yangtze disrupted the reptile’s natural habitat and drastically reduced its numbers. A survey in 1999 found only 130 alligators left, all living in a small region of the Anhui Province.
　　This week at the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Beijing, China, scientists announced that conservation efforts appear to be working: Captive-bred alligators released into the wild have produced 15 healthy babies.
　　“This is fantastic news,” said biologist John Thorbjarnarson of the Wildlife Conservation Society in a press release. “The success of this small population suggests that there’s hope for bringing the Chinese alligator back to some parts of its former distribution.”
　　Known in China as “tu long” — meaning muddy dragon — the Chinese alligator is one of only two varieties of alligator in the world and is considered the most threatened of all the crocodilian species. Attempts to restore the alligator to its natural habitat began with the reintroduction of three captive-bred animals from the Anhui Research Center of Chinese Alligator Reproduction in 2001.
　　Six more alligators, including three from the Bronx Zoo in New York, were released into the wild in 2007 after being equipped with radio transmitters for remote monitoring. Researchers tracked the alligators for the next two years, reporting that they hibernated successfully during the winter and then bred in 2008.

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