(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-13 16:56

KUNMING -- A growing population of wild bears at a World Heritage site in southwest China's Yunnan Province is threatening both the lives and livelihood of local farmers.

"Wild black bears have killed more than 20 sheep and destroyed 10 hectares of crops in our villagers," said Feng Yuzhong, a Zhala Village farmer in Gangshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous County in the core zone of the Three Parallel Rivers area.

The Three Parallel Rivers area, added to the World Heritage list in 2003, included sections of the upper reaches of the Jinsha, Nujiang and Lancang rivers that originated from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and ran north-south through the steep gorges. The 1.7-million-hectare site was rich in plant and animal species.

The animals in the protected area have increased since the 1990s when the local government confiscated guns from farmers and banned hunting as part of its ecological restoration effort.

Yu Qiuhua, head of Bingzhongluo Town that administers the Zhala Village, said this year the town was most severely affected by wild bears who destroyed crops, killed livestock and even hurt villagers.

A total of 40 hectares of croplands, mostly maize, was destroyed by bears this year. The losses amounted to about 100,000 yuan (13,500 US dollars), said Zhang Wenjun, a village official of Qiunatong village. Farmers around the area only have an annual per-capita net income of around 600 yuan.

Senior villagers said the environmental protection had led to the bear increase. When the animals could no longer forage for enough food in the mountains they turned to raiding the crops.

An estimated 300 wild bears were living in mountainous Gongshan, a concentrated area of the Dulong, Nu and Lisu ethnic minority groups.

"If you go a little deeper into the mountains in the daytime, you may encounter a bear," a villager said.

A Lisu farmer was recently swiped on the chin by a bear in a nearby village not long ago when he went home from his croplands. He was still in hospital.

"At first, we set wind-bells and scarecrows in the croplands, but they could not scare away the bears hunting for food," said Feng Yuzhong.

Feng said they had now installed recorders and loudspeakers in the field to play music to scare the bears away.

Currently, all farmers have dogs to keep the bears from ransacking their homes.

Local farmers were also considering planting crops that bears did not like to eat.