This post’s Tibetan Plateau location is higher and wilder than was true of #8 in this series.
The Chang Tang – also rendered into English as “Changtang” – is a very harsh environment, mostly grasslands at more than 4,000 metres above sea level, punctuated by mountains.
Much of it is protected in one of the world’s largest national parks, but climate change’s impact – here, mostly negative – is proving particularly extreme, rapid.
Goa – or Tibetan Gazelle – live here in still-considerable, but declining numbers.
Tibetan gazelles are small, speedy, and tough.
Mostly, they roam in places that humans and their livestock rarely reach, and crops don’t grow, where the ground is often frozen, precipitation is sparse (mostly arriving as snowflakes) and the “usual”, below-freezing air temperatures are inconstant – summer days can be searing.
Photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 11.41 am on 18 October 2019, in the eastern part of the Chang Tang in Qinghai, China.
Click here to discover more about Tibetan gazelles/goa.
Click this to learn a little about the Chang Tang.