LHASA - Forestry police in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region began patrolling a major habitat for Tibetan antelopes on Monday to protect their migration.

The forest police division of Tibet's armed police contingent and forest police in Tibet's northern Nagqu Prefecture will jointly patrol the remote uninhabited lands of the Qiangtang nature reserve.

The patrol will target poachers in the reserve and its surrounding areas, said Xu Xiongguang, deputy chief of Tibet's armed police contingent and commander of the joint patrol.

More than 100,000 migratory Tibetan antelopes in the Nagqu areas of the Qiangtang natural reserve will reach Servo Mountain and Tianshui River to give birth in late June.

The Tibetan antelope population in the Ali area of the reserve will migrate to the Kunlun Mountains around Tuesday to give birth.

With an average altitude of more than 5,000 meters, the state-level Qiangtang nature reserve has an area of 298,000 square km and is a habitat for wild animals on the state protection list, including Tibetan antelopes, donkeys, yaks and snow leopards.

The total population of Tibetan antelopes is around 200,000 in Tibet, according to the regional forest survey authorities.