Guangming Daily reporter Zhou Mengshuang
Nowadays, getting close to nature and watching wildlife is becoming a fashionable way to relax. But the excessive close contact between humans and wild animals has also given rise to many problems: Qianlingshan Park in Guiyang, Guizhou, has long been trapped in the park by the sharp increase in the number of macaques and frequent incidents of injuries and destruction. Recently, the Guiyang Forestry Bureau issued an announcement that it plans to divert the macaque population in Qianling Mountain Park for scientific research or population regulation.
How can visitors and wildlife keep their distance? Is it reasonable to feed wild animals artificially? How to make ecotourism healthy and healthy? With these questions in mind, the reporter interviewed relevant experts.
Black-necked cranes in Changtang National Nature Reserve. Xinhua News Agency
Rock sheep fighting in Sanjiangyuan National Park. Photo by Zhou Mengshuang/Guangming Pictures
Scientific diversion is imperative
On the morning of January 8, Li Yao, a citizen of Guiyang, brought his friends who visited from other places to Qianling Mountain Park. After repeatedly confirming that she did not have food with her, she was relieved to walk up the hiking trail. Several "experienced" macaques followed Li Yao for a while and then changed their targets and ran to the tourists who were feeding peanuts and rice. "If it weren't for my friends coming, I wouldn't want to come." Li Yao admitted that tourists being scratched and bitten by monkeys are not news in the local area, and there were once macaques who bit off part of the genitals of a baby boy and swallowed them, "When I was a child, I didn't know how to feed it, and now I am really afraid." ”
A safety sign in Qianlingshan Park reads: "Since 2004, macaques have injured people a total of 5,927 times, of which more than 20 people have been hospitalized for serious injuries." This card has been established for many years, and the reporter calculates according to the statistics of the past years, and now the macaque monkeys in Qianling Mountain have injured more than 20,000 people.
Due to long-term artificial feeding, the population of macaques in Qianling Mountain has reached about 1200, and the park covering an area of only 4.2 square kilometers is far from meeting the ecological needs of such a large population.
Compared with the frequent incidents of macaque monkeys hurting people, Zhou Jiang, a professor at Guizhou Normal University and a primate expert, believes that what is more worthy of vigilance is the potential risk of spilling monkeys to the order of urban public life and public safety. "Last year, there have been a number of power outages caused by macaques climbing transformers, and macaques have also appeared in the subway station in Guiyang, but fortunately they have not entered the train tracks." Zhou Jiang added, "As a high-speed railway transportation hub in the southwest region, Guiyang North Railway Station is only a few kilometers away from Qianling Mountain Park, and once the high-speed rail transmission line is destroyed by macaques, the losses and risks caused are difficult to predict." ”
Where did the macaques of Qianling Mountain come from? According to experts, the Macaque monkeys in Qianling Mountain are not a wild population in the strict sense. In the late 1950s, the macaques used for experiments at the Guizhou Provincial Epidemic Prevention Station fled to the Qianling Mountain Zoo and settled down; in the mid-1980s, the park carried out an artificial domestication project for macaques, expanding the population of macaques in the form of artificial feeding, making it a local tourism business card. Since then, coupled with the feeding of caring people and tourists, the number of macaques has increased dramatically.
"The growth of the macaque population in Qianling Mountain has brought social and ecological benefits to Guiyang, reflecting the achievements in biodiversity conservation, but it is also necessary to face the problem." Compared with the wild group of 20 or 30 wild macaques in the wild, the sheer scale of the Macaques in Qianling Mountain is a deformity, and there is a legitimacy and necessity for diversion. Zhou Jiang suggested that in order to achieve the effect of diversion, it is necessary to conduct in-depth investigation in the early stage and clarify the diversion object. For example, from the perspective of specific individuals, is it to grasp young individuals or adult individuals? Can you determine which monkeys are vulnerable? Whether to consider the whole herd diversion, so as not to destroy the community structure of the macaque monkeys and increase the probability of spillover.
Artificial feeding should be based on the premise of protection
Artificial feeding and artificial attraction are common measures for the protection and management of wild animals. For example, In recent years, Places such as Baihualing in Yunnan, Nonggang in Guangxi, and Kuanshui in Guizhou have all emerged as a kind of bird pond ecological economy. The so-called "bird pond" is to arrange artificial food and water supply environments near natural habitats, attract wild birds to come, for the majority of photography enthusiasts to shoot, and drive local economic development with tourists' consumption in food, accommodation, transportation and shooting.
Professor Han Lianxian of Southwest Forestry University believes that for some areas with abundant bird resources and lagging economic development, the development of bird ponds has played a huge role in local poverty alleviation, and the negative impact on the environment under scientific management is minimal. "Many villagers no longer poach and illegally logg, but have improved their lives by legally operating bird ponds, realized the significance of protecting biodiversity, and formed a virtuous circle of protection and income increase."
Jia Yifei, a young researcher at Beijing Forestry University, believes that artificial feeding is a common wildlife management measure, there is no right or wrong, the key is to see whether it can be used appropriately. "Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province has suffered from ice and snow disasters, and snow covers the feeding grounds of wintering birds, and this extreme situation requires artificial feeding intervention. However, in order to attract tourists, some scenic spots or management units blindly adopt a more extensive way to feed and attract birds in the absence of scientific planning, which is not conducive to bird survival and biodiversity conservation. ”
Due to artificial water sources, artificial feeding and the loss of traditional wintering grounds in Africa, the Hura Nature Reserve in Israel, which is only a few square kilometers, has become a wintering ground for 40,000 gray cranes. An outbreak of H5N1 bird flu broke out in Israel at the end of December last year, and more than 8,000 gray cranes had died as of January 10 this year. "Extremely high population densities have undoubtedly increased the power of epidemics, and we should learn from such a tragic loss to avoid the gathering of wild animals with excessive density and unnatural causes." Jia Yifei said.
Zhou Jiang said that artificial feeding is an important means to help endangered wild animals and very small population species quickly restore their populations, and it must be scientifically demonstrated before implementation, and it is necessary to fully consider the type of food, the amount of food and the feeding method, and cannot let wild animals rely too much on human feeding to maintain their daily ecological needs.
Let wildlife and people benefit together
Qinghai Yushu Zaduo County Angsai Township is located in Sanjiangyuan National Park Lancang Jiangyuan Garden, where water and grass are abundant, mountains and stones are strange, and biodiversity is abundant. In March 2019, the pilot project of Angsai Nature Experience Project, jointly established by Angsai Township and Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, passed the approval and became one of the first batch of national park ecological experience concession pilots in China. In the experience program, local herders serve as nature experience guides, drivers and host families, leading nature experiencers to search for wild animals such as snow leopards and Tibetan hartebeest in Ang Sai Township and enjoy natural and cultural landscapes.
Herdsman Sang Zhou told reporters that in the past, his main income came from raising yaks and digging cordyceps, and after the ecological experience project was carried out, he signed up to become a herdsman guide, "Receiving several groups of guests in idle time every year can increase the income of more than 10,000 yuan!" ”
The nature experience program not only broadens the horizons of visitors, but also brings dividends to the local area and stimulates the enthusiasm of herders to protect wildlife. "Since its inception, the project has hosted 177 nature experience teams from around the world. As of November last year, the Onsay Nature Experience Project has brought 1.768 million yuan in benefits to the community, of which 45% belongs to host families, 45% to community public affairs, and 10% to wildlife conservation funds. Qin Xuan, head of the Sanjiangyuan National Park team at the Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, said.
How is ecotourism different from tourism in the traditional sense? What principles should be followed when visiting a national park? In the view of Wen Cheng, a member of the World Heritage Expert Committee of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, the tourism activities carried out in the national park are different from mass tourism, and the ecological footprint and carbon footprint generated by tourists in the national park cannot put pressure on the protected species and ecological processes of the national park, so it is necessary to take protection as the premise and strictly limit the time and limit the region to carry out relevant activities.
"Tourism activities in the national park are an ecological science popularization experience, with environmental education orientation, and its theme should be closely related to the protection objects and values of the national park, so that the experiencers can have endless pride in the construction of China's ecological civilization in the process of appreciating wild animals and plants." Wen Cheng said.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-01-16 05 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily