By Bisola Adeyemo
No fewer than 142 animal species under second-class state protection were documented in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of southwest China’s Sichuan Province in 2021.
The local authorities said, as the ecological barrier of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, the two longest rivers in China, the prefecture saw the number of animal species under second-class and first-class state protection increase by 66.
Gong Zhiqiang of the local forestry and grassland bureau, said, since 2020, several rare animals including glossy ibis — rare birds once thought extinct in China — have been spotted in the prefecture.
According to news.cn, among them, 28 were discovered in the prefecture for the first time.