It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of wild animals have been trapped by snow and face starvation in the mountains to the southwest of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China's wild animal guardians said on Thursday.

Much needs to be done to save wild animals trapped in the snowbound Pamir Plateau in the northwest China region from starvation, said Dai Zhigang, head of the endangered animal protection station under the Forestry Bureau of Kashi Prefecture in western Xinjiang.

"New sightings of dead animals, mainly grazing species and wild birds, have been reported by wardens every day since February 7, when the blizzard waned. The station could not provide an exact death toll because it lacked personnel to do a full survey," Dai said.

"We have raised small sums for hay at 20 locations, but we lack the money and manpower to do more," he added.

The plateau's eastern slope is the prime breeding area for 300 wild bird species and more than 100 mammal species including argali (Marco Polo) wild sheep and black stork, China's most endangered species.

The worst winter weather in 50 years has blocked animals' feeding paths. Figures from the Xinjiang Observatory suggested that snow covered more than 700,000 square kilometers in the southern part of Xinjiang in the first two months of 2008.

Dai said that there used to be some 4,000 argali wild sheep roaming the area. The rare species, unique to the Pamirs, may face extinction due to lack of food in early spring, when mountain vegetation is hard to find, especially after the snowstorm. Many feeble members of the species have fallen prey to wild carnivores.

The weather also struck Xinjiang's agricultural and animal-husbandry sectors hard, causing losses estimated at 4.7 billion yuan (US$653 million), according to statistics from the regional government. The figure also showed that more than 100,000 livestock had died.

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2008)