Zhang Hefan: Why has the "rebirth" of the Przewalski's wild horse become a cultural symbol of the century-old interaction between China and the West?
China News Service Urumqi November 28 Title: Zhang Hefan: Why has the "rebirth" of the Przewalski's wild horse become a cultural symbol of the century-old interaction between China and the West?
Author Shi Yujiang
Platts wild horses are listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List, and currently have more than 2,000 horses worldwide, mainly distributed in more than 30 countries such as China, Mongolia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Belgium. Przewalski's wild horses came from China to Europe more than a hundred years ago and returned to their native land a hundred years later. From discovery to wild extinction, ex situ conservation, "wild horse return", population reproduction to the present "wild release", what vicissitudes have been experienced? What is the mirror for biodiversity conservation?
The 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity was recently held in Yunnan, China, and this year is also the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center (hereinafter referred to as the "Wild Horse Center") and the 20th anniversary of the Release of Przewalski's Wild Horses. Zhang Hefan, senior engineer of the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center, who has been engaged in the research of wild horse conservation for nearly 30 years, said in an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Question" recently that the success of reintroducing wild horses not only reflects the degree of importance That China attaches to the construction of ecological civilization, but also is an example of international mutual assistance to save endangered species. The reconstruction of wild horse populations has a profound impact on further promoting the protection of desert ecosystems and maintaining global biodiversity.
The world's first recorded Przewalski's wild horse twins born in Xinjiang's Kalamaili Nature Reserve grew up. Zhang Hefan Courtesy photo
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: The Przewalski's wild horse, known as a "living fossil", has returned to its original land from east to west for a hundred years. What was the bumpy experience of the Mustang reintroduction?
Zhang Hefan: Przewalski's wild horses are listed in Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and are known as "living fossils". Since the disappearance of the European wild horse from Ukraine in 1876, the Przewalski's wild horse has become the only wild horse in the world to survive.
In 1890, German explorers captured 52 young wild horse foals from the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang and transported them to Germany, surviving 28, of which 13 successfully bred offspring.
In the mid-20th century, przewalski's wild horses were mainly limited to the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, China, and the Kobdo region of Mongolia. In the early 1980s, after many special scientific expeditions in China, no evidence of Przewalski's wild horses was obtained.
During this period, Przewalski's wild horses were scattered in zoos, private hands and game reserves in the Soviet Union, the United States, West Germany, East Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and other countries, and there were only 385 in the world at that time.
Due to the long-term captivity environment, the excellent genes of wild horses in the wild gradually disappeared, while the reproductive ability was degraded, genetic diseases increased, and they faced the danger of extinction on the earth, which aroused international attention. The resulting Mustang Conservation and Management Organization established the goal of the Global Wild Horse Management Program: to preserve more than 90% of the genetic diversity of existing wild horses and reintroduce them to their native environment.
In October 1978, at the first meeting of the International Mustang Foundation held in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Chinese government responded positively and undertook the mission of saving this endangered species. The former Ministry of Forestry of China has signed agreements on the reintroduction of animals with the San Diego Zoo in the United States and the Hellabran Zoo in Germany.
In January 1985, China launched the "Wild Horse Return" program, and after many inspections and demonstrations by experts and scholars, the Wild Horse Center was established in Jimsar County, Xinjiang the following year.
In early March 2012, at a Przewalski's wild horse field in Xinjiang's Kalamaili Mountain Nature Reserve, workers were stocking forage for wild Przewalski's wild horses. Photo by Liu Xin, a reporter of China News Service
From 1985 to 2005, the Mustang Center introduced 24 Wild Horses from five batches in Britain, Germany and the United States. Since 1990, the Gansu Endangered Animal Protection Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration has successively introduced 18 horses from the United States and Germany. In 1992, the British John Aspino Wildlife Park donated 10 horses to China free of charge, and in 1997, the wild horses arrived at the Gansu Anxi Extreme Arid Desert National Nature Reserve.
China News Service: What is the current situation of Przewalski's Mustang after returning to its homeland?
Zhang Hefan: After 35 years of research and practice in wild horse breeding management, reproduction, disease prevention and control, behavior monitoring, physiological ecology, and rewilding and repatriation, captive wild horses have successfully passed the survival barriers such as food, water source, and natural enemy defense in the wild, and have reached the expected goals in the restoration of wild traits, reproduction, nutrition, family composition, population structure, environmental quality, living conditions, wintering and defense against predators.
Chinese wild horse conservation experts have explored a set of practical and feasible rewilding technology routes and schemes, and formulated a five-step soft release and return scheme of "adaptive breeding - pen breeding - semi-natural scattering test - natural scattering test - natural living wild population". In 2001, the wild horse release plan was launched in Xinjiang, the wild breeding was successful in 2003, and the wild horses formed a natural group in 2004. Wild horse wild stocks have achieved restorative growth and are moving towards free-living wild populations.
By the end of 2020, the Wild Horse Center has successfully bred more than 760 wild horses in 6 generations, and there are 484 wild horses, including 274 wild release populations, 113 semi-scattered populations, and 97 captive populations, and has developed into the world's largest professional wild horse breeding research base. In the past 20 years, 19 batches of 140 wild horses have been released into the wild. At present, the total number of wild horse populations in China ranks first in the world, showing the international image of "responsible big country".
Wild horses gallop in the snowfields of Kalamaili. Zhang Hefan Courtesy photo
China News Service: As a global cause, how do you understand the symbol of ecological civilization in the East and the West?
Zhang Hefan: China's Mustang rescue cause can achieve today's achievements, thanks to the concerted efforts of international counterparts and international friends. From this point of view, the Przewalski's wild horse has no borders and can be seen as a cultural symbol that runs through the ecological civilization of the East and the West.
Since its establishment, the Mustang Center has incorporated the Mustang Newspaper International Mustang Organization born every year into the International Mustang Genealogy Book, realizing the internationalization and scientific management of genealogical archives. During this period, visiting experts and scholars at home and abroad flocked endlessly. According to incomplete statistics, more than 100 foreign experts from Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Mongolia, Russia, Australia and other foreign countries have visited or cooperated. The Mustang Center carries out seed source exchanges and technical cooperation with scientific research units and organizations such as cologne zoo in Germany, Smithsonian National Zoo in the United States, Gobi B Conservation Area in Mongolia, and Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic from time to time.
In 1989, when West German friend Kristen Oswald visited the Mustang Center, he gave the center a set of solar fences. In 2005, the Cologne Zoo in Germany donated 6 stallions to us free of charge and provided liquid nitrogen cold branding technology to improve the mustang center to recognize wild horses based on natural characteristics. In 2007, American experts donated and wore radio satellite collars to the released Mustangs to achieve scientific monitoring of the mustang trajectory. In 2012, China sent four stallions to Mongolia, the first time That China exported seed sources abroad.
In the past two years, the Mustang Center has reached a cooperation intention with the Smithsonian Institute of Conservation Biology and the National Zoo of the United States, and the world's first wild horse artificial insemination technology in 2013 is the most advanced way to solve the problem of wild horse inbreeding in the world. After our introduction and absorption, we can serve the endangered ungulate species in the country and even the world.
International cooperation and technical exchanges have played an important role in China's artificial breeding and release of wild horses into nature, and promoted the recovery and growth of their wild populations.
Scramble for water sources. Zhang Hefan Courtesy photo
China News Service: The Przewalski's wild horse, which is extinct in The Wild in China, has been "reborn" and the number has jumped to the top of the world. What do you think is a mirror for the world's biodiversity conservation and even ecological environmental protection?
Zhang Hefan: Biodiversity is related to human well-being. Protecting any species, including the Przewalski's wild horse, is a contribution to the world's biodiversity.
Reintroduction is an important and effective means of protecting endangered species, and it is also a major scientific research experiment, without any experience to follow. The Chinese government has organized a multidisciplinary team of experts to carry out scientific research and rewilding experiments to improve the reproductive survival rate of wild horses in the Gobi desert, accumulating a large amount of scientific data and useful experience, and contributing to the implementation of the global integration of wild horse protection and the conservation of wild horse wild horse and genetic diversity proposed in the global wild horse management action plan.
In September 2007, the "Focus on Przewalski's Wild Horses and Build a Friendly Environment" campaign was launched in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and volunteers called on more citizens to join the activities of protecting wild animals by distributing brochures and explanations. Photo by Liu Xin, a reporter of China News Service
China's technological achievements and rewilding programs to improve the reproductive survival rate of wild horses have provided an effective "Chinese solution" for the re-introduction of other endangered species in the world, and then contributed Chinese strength and Chinese wisdom to the construction of a community of life on earth.
The extinct wild horse from the wild to the return to nature is not only a result of species protection, but also reflects the degree of importance China attaches to ecological construction and ecological civilization. The reconstruction of wild horse populations has a profound impact on further promoting the protection of desert ecosystems and maintaining global biodiversity. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Zhang Hefan, senior engineer of Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center. I provide the picture
Zhang Hefan is a senior engineer at the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center and a member of the China Association of Popular Science Writers. Mainly engaged in the research on the protection of the Przewalski's wild horse, a national first-class protected animal, he has been with the wild horse for nearly 30 years, writing more than 400,000 words of notes and publishing more than one million words. Among them, "Wild Horses Return to Kalamaili" won the Ninth Communist Youth League Spiritual Civilization Construction Five One Project Award; "The Call of the Wild - Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Return of Wild Horses to Their Hometowns" won the Gold Award of the Fifth Science Popularization Works in Xinjiang; "The Return of the Wild Horses in Xinjiang" won the first prize of the Seventh Liang Xi Science Popularization Works; "Wild Horses Return Home" won the Silver Award of the Fifth Excellent Science Popularization Works Award of the China Association of Science Popularization Writers; and "Wild Horse Homeland" was selected into the "Recommended Catalogue of Key Publications of rural bookstores in 2020" by the State Press and Publication Administration.
Source: China News Network