GOLMUD/LHASA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Thanks to China's environment protection efforts, endangered Tibetan antelopes and other wildlife species can live in harmony amid booming tourism with the operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

    The wild animals in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are getting used to the railway, on which a pair of trains ran on Saturday to their destinations of Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region and Golmud in Qinghai Province.

    Some lucky travelers witnessed herds of Tibetan antelopes browsing or leisurely roaming in the Hoh Xil preserve in Qinghai thanks to special passageways established for their smooth migration.

    China has solved three major difficulties including how to protect a vulnerable plateau environment to rewrite the world's history of railway construction with the completion of Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

    Thanks to the high altitude and harsh climate, the environment is very fragile along the railway. China has put environmental protection on the top of its agenda in the construction of the altiplano railway and workers built 33 passages for migrating animals.

    The Tibetan antelope, an endangered species at the top of China's protection list, native to the grasslands of northwestern Qinghai Province, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Tibet, will no longer face the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as an obstacle on their migration route, said an official with the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve Administration.

    The 33 passageways built for migrating animals will enable antelopes and other animals pass the Qinghai-Tibet railway freely.

    According to officials with Wudaoliang station in the Hoh Xil preserve, thousands of pregnant antelopes have been seen crossing the railway via special passages before the railway's operation.

    The population of Tibetan antelopes has dropped from several million to below 100,000 in the past two decades, a result of excessive poaching and human encroachment of their habitat.

    International traffickers hunt the antelopes to make shahtoosh shawls, a luxury item that requires three to five pieces of antelope fur to make just one shawl.

    Since 1979, the Tibetan antelope has been recognized as an endangered species and protected under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. Since 1989, the species has been listed as Class-A protected animal in China's Wildlife Protection Law.

    China has established three nature reserves to protect the rare creatures, covering a total of more than 600,000 sq km, an area 40 times the size of Beijing.

    One of them is located in Hoh Xil, a 45,000-sq. km area that has an average altitude of 5,000 meters and an average temperature of minus four degrees Celsius, with the lowest reaching minus 40 degrees.

    How to build the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's most elevated railway, through the Hoh Xil without encroaching on the animals' homes was one of the biggest challenges confronting the designers and builders of the railway.

    For the first time in any railway project, the Chinese government spent heavily to build 33 green passageways for animals.

    Construction work was suspended for several consecutive nights when female antelopes crossed the site while migrating to and from their breeding sites in June and August of 2003, when the Hoh Xil section of the railway was being built.

    To date, rare animals in the region have become used to the railway, said officials with the Hoh Xil nature reserve administration.

    "They're no longer scared of the human work and cross the railway with ease," said Cega, director of the reserve administration in Qinghai Province.

    A first group of 67 pregnant antelopes from the eastern part of the reserve crossed Wubei bridge of the Qinghai-Tibet railway on May 16 to give birth in the hinterland, according to Gelai, head of Wudaoliang station in the Hoh Xil reserve.

    About 1,000 antelopes have crossed the railway via special passages so far, Gelai said. "Tibetan antelopes started migrating earlier this year than the past few years."

    The central government spent 1.5 billion yuan (about 180 million US dollars) on environment conservation along the route, the largest amount in any single railway project in China.

    The 1,956-kilometer-long Qinghai-Tibet railway is the world's highest and longest plateau railroad and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with other parts of China. Enditem