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Check on chiru

PHOTO: AP

ENDANGERED: The chiru.

Chinese filmmaker Lu Chuan says he was inspired by the true story of the chiru — a rare antelope — and the Tibetan volunteers who risk their lives to protect the endangered antelope from poachers. The real-life drama inspired Lu's movie "Mountain Patrol: Kekexili", now playing in select U.S. cities. For two decades poachers have slaughtered chiru by the thousands for their wool, which is finer and more expensive than cashmere. The fibre, known as shahtoosh, is smuggled out of Tibet into Kashmir, where it is woven into fashionable shawls that can fetch as much as U.S. $5,000 to $10,000 on the black market. "Mountain Patrol: Kekexili" dramatises the anti-poaching patrols that formed in the 1990s to root out poachers and shield chiru from slaughter. It's not every day that the struggle to protect an endangered species makes it to the silver screen.

COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN

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