The Chinese Government has put the ili pika, a mouse-like animal native to northwest China, on an endangered species list.

The cliff-dwelling ili pika population had dropped 55 percent over the past 10 years, leaving fewer than 3,000 adult animals, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The animal has been put on the China Species Red List, which the State Environmental Protection Administration and the Endangered Species Scientific Commission modeled after the list established in 1963 by the World Conservation Union, a group of 800 non-government organizations and 114 government agencies.

Scientists say ili pikas, which live only in the Tianshan Mountains of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, were dying out because of inbreeding, natural enemies and the difficult environment, Xinhua said.

Ili pikas, which could grow up to 200 millimeters long and have rusty red spots on their foreheads, lived at 2,800 meters to 4,100 meters above sea level, an elevation where snow was plentiful but plants scarce, said scientist Li Weidong with the Xinjiang Institute of Environment Protection in Urumqi.

In an academic report, Li says that "only 27 ili pikas" have been found since their discovery in the mid-1980s, generating an estimate of 2,900 altogether. About 2,000 of those are mature.

"In addition to its low population, the habitat it occupies is severely fragmented," Li said. 

(Shenzhen Daily/Agencies February 16, 2004)