Efforts underway to protect endangered monkeys

GUIYANG, April 10 -- The demolition of a mountain-top hotel will

help protect the endangered grey snub-nosed monkey in southwest China's Guizhou

Province.

The Mogushi Hotel was creating too much garbage in the Fanjing Mountain

National Nature Reserve, said Zhang Yanghong, tourism head of Yinjiang County on

Friday.

The reserve's management began demolishing the 80-bed hotel April 6. Its

owner was paid 880,000 yuan (128,800 U.S. dollars) by Wuhan Sante, a company

which will begin operating a cableway into the reserve at the end of this month,

according to Zhang.

At an altitude of 2,270 meters, the Mogushi Hotel was called the highest

hotel in Guizhou Province. It began operations in 2002and was a favorite choice

for tourists who wanted to see the monkeys and a sunrise. To get there, they had

to climb 7,897 steps by foot.

The stairway will remain after the hotel is gone. A 3,400-metercableway to

the mountain top will also be put in use as of April 29. It will allow tourists

to make visit the reserve in one day.

Zhang said the cableway will bypass where the grey snub-nosed monkeys live

to reduce impacts on the animals.

The monkey, the rarest among the three species of golden monkeys in China's

Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Hubei provinces, mainly lives in the Fanjing Mountain

National Nature Reserve.

Groups of the snub-nosed monkey were not found by Chinese scientists until

the early 1980s. At that time, it was estimated that there were only 200. After

years of protection, the population has risen to 850, still far less than the

number of giant pandas in China, which is estimated to be around 1,830.