Twelve Chinese alligators (Alligator sinensis) that were raised in the United States arrived at the Chinese Alligator Breeding Center in Zhejiang on Thursday evening after a 30-hour air trip. The twelve crocodiles will be used in future to help breed more wild alligators in China which was considered as the original living place for the reptilian animal.

 

Of the twelve crocodiles, three lived in the Disney World in Florida, six from the Bronx Zoo in New York, and another three from the St. Augustine Crocodile Breeding Center in Florida. The twelve adult crocodiles, six male and six female, had all lived in a wild environment, with the eldest one being eight years old. Their parents came to live in the United States from China between the 1950s and 1960s.

 

A person in charge at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said that in 2001, at a seminar held by China on re-introducing the Chinese alligators, China and WCS reached a consensus on bringing some of them back to China. WCS and International Fund for Animal Welfare, or IFAW, would provide assistance for such project free of charge, as suggested by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

 

Mr. Wang Zhiping, member of the IUCN’s Species Surviving Committee on Crocodiles and also a member of the Zheijiang Wildlife Conservation Council, said that China would release the most number of the alligators to nature this time and it was also the first time for those alligators born and raised in the US to return home. Among all 23 crocodile animals in the world, Alligator sinensis is considered as the most endangered type at present, and China currently has 130 Alligator sinensis living in the wild. The figure is still decreasing at a rate of 4-6% annually. Although China has more than 10,000 human-bred Alligator sinensis, they have gradually lost their capability of surviving the wild environment, and their heredity diversity has become smaller, too. Many human-bred Alligator sinensis were born with abnormity such as short legs or blind eyes. Bringing in alligator sinensis abroad will therefore add more diversity to Alligator sinensis raised at home, and prevent inbreeding and variety loss.

 

(Chinanews.cn May 23, 2006)