Ravenous wolves had attacked livestock of six herdsmen in the past week on Xilingol Plateau of northwest China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, killing a total of 306 sheep, regional border defense officials reported Friday.

Wang Changsheng, from the organization said, "The attacking happened before, but wolves killed five to six sheep one time at most."

The continuous snowy weather might have led to the massacre, he said, "because wolves can't find food elsewhere in the snow."

Herdsmen Zhao Runming and Liu Manku each lost 120 sheep at one night.

"It was horrible. I went to the sheepfold at 5:30 AM Wednesday and I saw the pen was open already. Twenty sheep were lying on the ground with blood everywhere. Six of them were left with only heads and legs," another herdsman Aurigele said.

He also said he did not hear anything during the night.

"We don't know what to do, as wolves often attack at night, and we can't hunt them," he said.

Wolves became endangered in the 1970s because of their being hunted. Now the animal is protected and hunting has been banned since the 1990s.

Snowstorm and cold snap has affected 400,000 people in China's Inner Mongolia since the beginning of 2010.

Local government is helping the herdsmen to build stronger fences and transfer all the livestock to a safer place.

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2010)