As the saying goes, "no rules are not square", no matter which line you do, which industry you do, you must follow the rules. For example, antiques, "one red, two black and three white" can not be touched is a convention, three white refers to ivory, two black refers to rhino horn, as for this red is "crane top red", do you know what this crane top red refers to?
In an auction a few years ago, a crane top red was auctioned for a high price of 800,000 yuan, which was 3 times the price of ivory, which made countless people marvel. But how many people know that behind this crane top red is the life of a helmeted hornbill waiting for death, the innocent demise of a helmeted hornbill family?
The so-called crane top red, in fact, refers to the "red gizzard" on the head of the helmeted hornbill, to put it bluntly, it is similar to the existence of the chicken crown, which is not unusual in itself. It could not resist its solid and beautiful texture, and it was extremely rare, so as early as the Yuan Dynasty, this kind of thing had been paid as a tribute to the imperial court, and officials used it to make cups and belts for play.
In modern times, the "tribute" disappeared, but the collectors' love for the crane top red was undiminished, and people took the "red gizzard" from the head of the living helmet hornbill, and then carefully polished and carefully carved it, and finally made into a collection of Buddha statues and bracelets, and then sold to those collectors at a high price. In auctions in previous years, a complete and finely carved Red Buddha statue could even sell for 800,000 yuan, much more exaggerated than the price of ivory of the same quality.
The crane top red on the market is usually yellow on the outside and red on the inside, which is because the skull of the helmeted hornbill is of this color, and the crane top red pendant is bright in color and valuable. But in essence, this is no different from ivory and rhino horn, where people can't see it, there is dripping blood, and this cruel creation is used to carve Buddha statues, pin their faith, express their piety, and I have to say that we can only feel a great irony from it.
Leaving aside the helmeted hornbill's "red gizzard", this is actually an ordinary bird, although it has the largest size of all the hornbills, but it is usually only 1.1 to 1.2 meters, which is not huge. After the male matures, the weight can reach 3.1 kg, while the female bird's weight is mainly between 2.6 and 2.8 kg, and the reason for this gap is that the female bird does not have a "red gizzard" and does not have to bear the 10% weight on the head.
The helmeted hornbill itself is a particularly beautiful bird, and the male's huge red gizzard is not to mention, and they usually have two slender tail feathers on their bodies. Although the bird does not have red gizzards and tail feathers, the light blue neck and dark brown feathers with a metallic luster are also quite eye-catching.
Most amazingly, the helmeted hornbills have large and beautiful eyes, and the reddish-brown iris gives them the magic of moving the soul.
In addition to their beautiful appearance, the helmeted hornbilly is a very dedicated animal, strictly monogamous, usually living together in the low mountains below 1500 meters above sea level and in the broad-leaved forests at the foot of the mountains. This bird eats more heterogeneously, like fruit plants or seeds, as well as snail worms and other insects on their diets. It is worth emphasizing that the female bird does not hunt when hatching the young birds, from the time the female gives birth to the eggs, to the time the chicks hatch and grow feathers on the whole body, the female birds will stay in the tree hole, and the male will seal the hole with mud, leaving only a small hole for feeding.
This lifestyle gives helmeted hornbills a certain level of safety, but at the same time it is extremely easy to bring them ruin. When males are hunted by poachers, females tend to starve to death in tree holes along with their young birds, which directly leads to a plummeting decline in helmeted hornbills in modern times.
Native to Myanmar, Thailand and Sumatra, the number of helmeted hornbills was once as high as more than 6,000, but due to the frenzied hunting of people and the compression of helmeted hornbills by human production activities, the global number of this bird is now less than 100. In Singapore and other areas, it is directly locally extinct, and it is currently a "critically endangered species" recognized by the United Nations, and its suffering is really regrettable.
In international trade, the helmeted hornbilly's head red gizzard, along with rhino horn and ivory, is listed as a prohibited trade. Article 341 of China's Criminal Law clearly stipulates that those who illegally hunt and kill rare and endangered wild animals such as helmeted hornbills, or illegally transport and sell related products, will be fined if the circumstances are minor, and will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than 5 years; if the circumstances are serious, they will be sentenced to more than 5 years and less than 10 years; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they will start directly from 10 years, and the fines can be up to confiscated personal property. It can be said that strict norms have been made in this regard.
The law has clear provisions, but it is not enough to resist that there are always people who are desperate to take risks; before China's Hong Kong Customs seized a batch of "crane top reds," smugglers even wanted to use the crude excuse of "pheasant head fruit" to fool through the customs, but in the end it was the trial of the law that greeted him. Last year, such an incident also occurred in Zhejiang, China, where the relevant departments of Zhejiang Province seized Hedinghong from the dens of a group of lawbreakers and directly sent those who tried to challenge the bottom line of the law to prison.
We must admit that the endangerment of the helmeted hornbill is directly related to human beings, and if it were not for those who claimed to be high society, who gave the helmeted hornbill skull "the connotation of wealth and power", how could the helmeted hornbill usher in such a tragic fate?
As the saying goes, there is no killing without buying and selling, or I hope that everyone can resolutely resist the so-called "crane top red" and also resist all wildlife products, only in this way can we protect the helmeted hornbills, protect our species diversity, and protect the future of our humanity.