The Paper's reporter Zhang Hui intern Yang Yurun
Yellow Mast Design
【Editor's Note】
The magic capital of Shanghai, urban and wild coexist. In open and hidden areas, people and animals meet unexpectedly.
The roe deer, raccoons, macaques, cochineals, and Aurora jays living in Shanghai are our animal neighbors. In the case of Shanghai, some of them are indigenous, foreign visitors, and some have experienced from disappearance to return. Human society is busy, and animal neighbors bring surprises, beauty and "trouble".
Life in the city is not simple. Animals strive to adapt to the environment, they in the community, green space, wetland park silently evolved, breeding, to find a place.
At the same time, cities are working hard to renew. Shanghai is laying out more spaces for people to be close to nature, and it is necessary to build a total of 20 important habitats for wild animals, restore and build nearly 6,300 mu of wetlands and wildlife habitats, and give more wild animals the possibility of becoming "citizens".
From "the garden is in the city" to "the city is in the garden", how people and animals share the city, Shanghai has given the answer: during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, build a park city, a forest city, a wetland city, and explore best practices for people and animals to live in harmony. Longer-term goals have also been planned, and by 2035, an ecological city will be basically completed.
In June 2020, in a community in Songjiang, Shanghai, Wu Yiqian, a staff member of the Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, saw 3 newborn raccoons, and there were also raccoons and mothers in the nest. Probably because of the fight, the raccoon father and mother have broken an ear.
Raccoon Wu Yiqian, who had an ear cut off
In July, Zhao Qianqian, a graduate student at Fudan University, was busy investigating the "truth about the attack on pet dogs by raccoons." In a residential building, the "raccoon" family emerged from the drainage ditch, and as soon as the people approached, the big raccoon stood up alertly, and the little raccoon still boldly looked.
Zhao Qianqian said that the little raccoon has only been a few months and does not know the danger of the outside world.
Wild raccoons, which live in rockeries and wall gaps in the community, are widely distributed in nature, and are now stationed in cities and neighbors with people. When the raccoon family enters more and more communities, human raccoon contradictions will inevitably occur.
In Ghibli's famous animation "The Changeable Tanuki", the green mountains and rivers are rapidly decreasing, the scale of the city is getting larger and larger, and the tanuki in the primeval forest has to fight with humans. Among them, the prototype of the tanuki cat is the raccoon.
Of course, such natural lamentations will not appear in Shanghai today, and how people and raccoons coexist is becoming the desk topic of many people in this city.
Native residents, the city home
In many communities in Songjiang, raccoons are not difficult to see.
At night, when a person walks on the road, he may meet a raccoon unexpectedly. It either slipped into the grass at once, or half-crouched and lying on its stomach to confront people's eyes. The bold raccoon has a very "enemy does not move, I do not move" posture.
The Raccoon King of the Night is photographed
Over the past few years, a research team led by Wang Fang, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the School of Life Sciences of Fudan University, has observed, tracked and studied wild raccoons in Shanghai.
Photo by Zhang Hui, a surging journalist at the side of the rockery
In a record of an infrared trigger camera they installed, the large raccoon stood at the mouth of the false cave, and the small raccoon crawled at its feet, moving its rounded body, and its body shape was several times different. Others stood still and looked out, some jumping among the rockeries, their round eyes shining in the night.
Wang Fang said that Shanghai's raccoons are not "breaking into the city", they are indigenous people. The distribution of raccoons has been very extensive, from the large and small Xing'an Mountains to Beijing, from Taihang in Shanxi to the Yangtze River Delta, southeast to Anhui Fujian, southwest to Yunnan Guizhou, nearly half of China was once the natural distribution area of raccoons.
After finding a habitat in the city, the raccoon's hiding environment has also changed from caves and tree roots to cracks under the villa's balconies, wall gaps, storage rooms, and abandoned sewers.
In the same community of the "One Ear Family", Zhao Fengshi, the leader of the building group, knew that there was a raccoon hole at the root of the wall downstairs. This animal is common in his hometown of Liaoning, where the locals call it háo zi. When it was hot, he saw the big raccoon leading the small raccoon, crouching in the community looking for a cool place, and the residents were used to it.
Distribution of Raccoons in Shanghai Courtesy of Respondents
After continuous visits and monitoring studies, the research team found that wild raccoons appeared in 150 communities in Shanghai. Conservative estimates show that the number of raccoons in the city is 3,000-5,000.
From the subway Songjiang University Town Station and Sheshan Station, there are raccoons in many surrounding communities.
Why do raccoons prefer Matsue? Wu Yiqian participated in the raccoon survey and visited more than 200 communities and green spaces. He explained that in Downtown Shanghai, such as traditional Shikumen buildings or old residential areas, the ground has a high degree of hardness and a low greening rate, which is not suitable for raccoons to live. The area around Shanghai used to be a traditional Jiangnan house, and the ground was also hardened, which was also not suitable for raccoons.
Nowadays, new communities in Songjiang, Minhang and Qingpu are built, not far from farmland and wasteland, and raccoons have found that the new communities are greenery and can be well adapted to local residence, which will spread in.
The heirs prosper and the family grows
The "One Ear" family was very worried about Wu Yiqian, and he often went to visit. Seeing more, Daddy Raccoon no longer reacted much to his approach.
However, before the arrival of last winter, Wu Yiqian found that Raccoon's mother was still there, and Raccoon's father had run away from home. The rare two encounters proved that he was still alive — the raccoon's father may have just found another hole to live in.
A raccoon can give birth to more than three litters per litter. Photo by Wu Yiqian
Under the care of the mother raccoon, the three baby raccoons slowly grew up. This year, several more cubs were born in the nest. The mating period of raccoons is in February and March every year, the gestation period is about two months, and there can be more than three litters per litter.
Newborn raccoons are like small kiwis, black and autumnal and like small bears. Slowly, the baby raccoon appeared, and the mouth of the cave became lively. Wu Yiqian speculated that this might be a large family led by a raccoon mother.
In fact, under natural conditions, the frequency of raccoon activities during the day is very low, but in some communities, raccoons will also come out in the sun during the day, and they are not wary of people, becoming very "Buddhist", and their eating habits and rhythms have changed.
In the night, raccoons are rummaging through garbage. Photo by Wu Yiqian
"Generally speaking, cities have two more food sources than in the wild, one is cat food fed by residents, and the other is wet garbage." Wu Yiqian once carried a small box to throw garbage, and was seen by the raccoon. Perhaps thinking that there was food inside, the raccoon watched from the sidelines, waiting for him to put down the box before going up to look through it.
Feeding cat food will make the raccoon establish a wrong understanding - "People are here to feed, people are good to me, and I don't have to be afraid of people from now on." Wu Yiqian said that when the behavior of the raccoon fearing to escape people is changed, it will make the raccoon have begging behavior and even take the initiative to approach people. It is inevitable that there will be human raccoon conflicts in the community.
Neighbors with people, occasionally suspicious
Raccoon is the "top stream" in Shanghai in July this year, frequently on the hot search. However, in the eyes of researchers, the raccoons seen by the public in exaggerated terms such as "Shanghai Raccoon Flood" and "Raccoon Attacking People" are not the whole picture.
Residents of a community in Songjiang have reported that the raccoon suddenly came out from under the car parked on the side of the road, barked at two dogs, and bit the dog's hind legs.
Zhao Qianqian, one of Wang Fang's scientific research team, squatted in the community for a week. She found that at 5 a.m. in early June, it was the time when the city's wildlife was infested. The raccoon that came out of the bottom of the car should be moving around with its cubs, facing two pet dogs, and there was a cub protection behavior.
In mid-July, a new community in Songjiang, Shanghai, reported raccoons and complaints from residents. This is not surprising, July is the lactation period of the raccoon, but also the "tension period" of the human raccoon relationship.
After receiving the news, Zhao Qianqian, Fudan doctoral student Diao Yixin, and the staff of the Songjiang Forestry Department rushed to the scene. Waiting for them was a nervous property guy who raised his eyebrows.
Under the leadership of the little brother, the group went straight to the raccoon cave. Several raccoon holes are opened under the roots of the wall on the first floor, and the small openings cannot judge the depth of the holes. Upon inquiry, the downstairs is an underground garage, and as long as the raccoons cut open the floating soil, the gap in the middle is a good place to live, and they are very good at using this structure.
"You said that raccoons don't bite people, and if they do, are you responsible?" The property brother relayed some of the owners' doubts while flipping out the group chat message. Inside the group, some people dumped the "raccoon flood" article into the group; others worried about the safety of children and the elderly. Residents who lived above the cave also opened the windows and shouted that the sound of raccoons tearing at night was noisy.
"Can you dispose of the raccoon?" Hearing this question, Zhao Qianqian explained that the raccoon is a national second-level protected animal and is protected by law. Even if the number is enough to require diversion, it is assessed after the August lactation period. Now they have taken such measures, cutting off the water source of the community landscape pond, managing the garbage and cat food feeding, in order to control the raccoon's rations. At the entrance of the cave, signs of "do not come near" were erected to publicize the residents.
On a sweltering night in July, after dealing with the "raccoon" and installing the infrared trigger camera, the research team returned to the city from Matsue. On the way, two citizens walking their dogs toward each other, and suddenly, the pets bite each other without warning.
Seeing this scene, Diao Yixin couldn't help but sigh: "Even if two dogs meet, they can bite up, why (there is a conflict) to find us raccoons?" ”
Abandon fighting and share mutual benefits
By September, the raccoons had grown up, and the team's "raccoon investigation" continued at midnight. In order to avoid confusing the "river" of the river with the "raccoon" of the wild raccoon, the team often used the term "raccoon" to refer to the raccoon as a wild animal.
In order to understand the spread of raccoons in the city, Wang Fang's team "waited for the raccoons" in many places late at night, wearing GPS collars for them. "In different parts of the city, the 'culture' of the raccoon is also different."
The team found that some of the raccoons in the neighborhood were stupid, put down the cage, it would burrow in, and when it put on the collar and let it go, the raccoon was still very relaxed and would be caught again.
In some communities, the raccoon is very alert, and continues to squat for a week, and it does not enter the cage. For example, the raccoon of the Tatsuyama Botanical Garden is very clever, it eats all the food around the cage, and then probes its head to eat the food in the cage, without actually going into it.
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When there is a raccoon in the Shanghai community: don't feed, don't be afraid. Shooting: Peng Youqi Wang Siqi Part of the material source: Wang Fang Zhao Qianqian Editor: He Yuqian (01:58)
The raccoon wearing a GPS collar returns to the nest, and its trajectory conveys more information about the "city raccoon".
"The raccoon's ability to actively adapt to and explore urbanization together makes them live better in the city." Wang Fang said that in nature, the raccoon's home area is clear to each other, and it will also drive away the same kind. But in the city, limited by the environment and the size of the community, the raccoon shows a lot of sharing and cooperation.
For example, several raccoon families share a community, the activity area is highly overlapping, there is little conflict with each other, unlike in the wilderness. During the breeding season, the range of the raccoon family is not more than 100 meters. And when an accident occurs and the raccoon begins to look for a new home, they will explore a large area, find a new foothold, and then take root.
"Some people are worried that if there is no natural enemy in Shanghai, will the population get out of control? The findings firmly tell us that the population of raccoons does not rise unconditionally, but that there is a clear upper limit. Wang Fang said that after investigation, among the more than 150 communities with raccoons, about one-third of the raccoons in the community remained unchanged, about one-third of the raccoons in the community were decreasing, and the remaining one-third was increasing. Last year, a small district was in the news because of the surge in the number of raccoons, with more than 100 complaints about raccoons, and this year the community has zero complaints.
The reason is also very direct, after the residents pay attention to the problem, they stop the cat food feeding and do a good job of garbage delivery. Community attraction to raccoons decreases, and raccoon populations naturally decline.
Wang Fang introduced that since 2018, Shanghai wild raccoons have experienced three or four years of growth. When species grow rapidly, they reach a plateau period. If raccoons do not receive food from humans, there is a limit to their number in cities. In addition, compared to the hundreds of thousands of stray cats in the city, the number of raccoons is not amazing.
Photo by Wang Fang of Shanghai
"As an aboriginal, the reappearance of raccoons in the city is the result of a better urban ecological environment, and it is generally a thing worth rejoicing in." Moreover, in Wang Fang's view, the raccoon has a very cute side, it has curiosity, curiosity, and when it takes the initiative to approach people, it can see its particularly clear eyes.
In the years of investigation, Wang Fang also saw a lot of natural evolution of great places, such as several female raccoons breastfeeding a small raccoon at the same time, and even can not see whose child the raccoon is; the raccoon shows a very strong vitality, it sometimes goes hunting, competing with cats and dogs; the raccoon will also adjust its activity time according to human activities.
He said that these changes can take hundreds of years, thousands of years to happen in the wilderness, but in cities, it seems to happen in a few years, "these are very amazing from a scientific point of view." ”
Editor-in-charge: Zheng Hao
Proofreader: Liu Wei