On February 4, 2022, the world-renowned Beijing 24th Winter Olympics opened. The elk, which symbolizes auspiciousness in traditional Chinese culture, has twice participated in the Beijing Olympic mascot campaign.
In 2018, Elk participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics mascot campaign, and the designers integrated the characteristics of elk behavior with the Olympic spirit, ice and snow elements, green Winter Olympics and other concepts, explaining the Olympic spirit of higher, faster, stronger and more united.
A double contender for the Beijing Olympic mascot
In traditional Chinese culture, the elk symbolizes auspicious benevolence. In 2004, Elk competed for the mascot of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, finishing in the top ten in the selection organized by the news media, and its entries were exhibited by the Olympic Museum Collection. In 2018, Elk participated in the beijing Winter Olympic Mascot campaign and submitted 108 image design drafts to the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee. Using the elk as the prototype of the mascot, the designers integrated the behavior characteristics of the elk with the Olympic spirit, Chinese culture, ice and snow elements, scientific and technological innovation, green Winter Olympics and other concepts, and explained the higher, faster, stronger and more united spirit of the Olympic Games. Therefore, elk is a double competitor for the mascot of the Beijing Olympic Games.
The design concept of the mascot of the 2016 World Monthly Intercontinental Congress is also derived from the elk, the overall design image is vivid and lively, and the conference breaks the design concept of the previous generation with flowers and plants as the prototype, and takes animals as mascots to reflect the harmonious coexistence of people and animals and plants.
This is exactly "the years are deep, the elk are friends".
Elk is a large herbivoore belonging to the mammalian order, even-hoofed order, deer family, and elk genus. Because its horns resemble a deer, its face resembles a horse, its hooves resemble an ox, and its tail resembles a donkey, it is commonly known as "four unlikes". In fact, this body form of elk has evolved for a long time due to adapting to the wetland living environment.
The elk is one of the oldest species on the mainland, originating in the Wei River Basin in western China more than 2 million years ago. From the fossils found today, it is speculated that elk is widely distributed in the ancient geography of the mainland, reaching Liaoning in the north, Hainan in the south, Shaanxi in the west, Shanghai and Taiwan in the east, and the elk population reached its peak during the Zhou Dynasty.
Mainly living in the warm and humid areas of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, the elk reproduces and prospers with the evolution and migration of humans, is the representative of the oldest species that originated in China, and is a witness to the progress of human social development.
Deer King Battle
Inheritor of traditional Chinese culture
Throughout the history of the Chinese nation, the use of elk in the fields of literature, aesthetics, and traditional Chinese medicine is unique, like a bright pearl, blooming with dazzling brilliance.
As early as the oracle bones and stone drum texts on the mainland, there are records of the word "elk". Among the thousands of ancient Chinese poems, there are more than 300 about elk, Confucius's "Taishan collapses in front of the same color, and the elk is happy on the left and does not look at the moment." "Lu Tong's" Yang Slope soft grass is thick as a weave, trapped and sleeping with deer elk. The Qianlong Emperor also loved elk, and once wrote the "Elk Horn Commentary" in the painting, and ordered someone to engrave it on the elk antlers. Li Bai, Du Fu, and Lu You all wrote elk poems. In modern times, from elk poetry to elk fables to elk songs, more and more writers and scholars express their deep feelings for elk between the lines, arousing people's awareness of protecting elk and loving animals.
The whole body of the elk is a treasure, and its antlers, horns, blood, skin, etc. are all excellent Chinese medicinal materials. According to historical records such as the Compendium of Materia Medica, "elk antler is better than deer antler velvet, and it is mainly used to treat all hemorrhages."
Elk unravels its horns on the winter solstice and grows new antlers in spring, representing the revival of all things, meaning auspicious and is considered to be a kind of beast. Jiang Ziya's mount and Chu Guozhen's tomb beast are both elk.
The term "brave to win the crown" was originally used to describe the male elk in the battle for the deer king, the laurel branches and other blades of grass were picked up and wrapped around the antlers, as a symbol of rank, the ancients borrowed the metaphor of Wen Wu Zhuangyuan, and was later used by people to describe advanced figures in all walks of life.
Elk is an indication of farming. "Xia Xiaozheng" is the earliest surviving almanac on the mainland to record traditional agricultural affairs, which reflects the development level of agricultural production in the pre-Qin Central Plains to a certain extent, and preserves the ancient and precious astronomical calendar knowledge of the mainland. In "Xia Xiaozheng", the "meteorite elk horn" is used as a phenological indication for november of the summer calendar: the huge antlers actually fall off at the winter solstice, and can be quickly reborn after the spring, which is closely related to the earth rejuvenation of the celestial elephants.
Elk is rich in words. For example, it means "elk to" that comes in flocks, "elk gathering" that gathers in groups, "elk boiling" that boils and chaos, "elk field (田)" that elk tramples on, and "elk zhi" that hides in hermitism. In the Eastern Han Dynasty Xu Shen's "Explanation of Words and Characters", "Qi, Ren Beast also." Elk body, ox tail, a horn", pointing directly to the unicorn is the embodiment of the elk.
Elk means good. "Deer" and "Lu" have harmonic sounds, representing good fortune and abundance, forming an auspicious meaning of "deer" ascending, "deer" Shouxi, "deer" peace, and "deer" having you. From ancient times to the present, elk culture has carried the heritage and treasure of the Chinese nation's thick culture, is the inheritance of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, and embodies the development of the traditional cultural symbols of the Chinese nation. In recent years, Beijing Elk Ecological Experiment Center has designed a series of cultural and creative products based on elk, which are popular with the masses. Using 50 kinds of pictograms, seal books and other fonts and 50 different elk behavior postures to merge into a "Fu" character idea, the design and production of stereotypes, during the Winter Olympics to let the majority of tourists experience printing, bring "happiness" home, deeply loved by everyone.
This is exactly "Wanlu for the Friendship Of the Winter Olympics, And The Blessing of The Hundred Deer Is Blessed with Auspiciousness!" ”
"Herds of elk, tigers and leopards avoid them"
A vivid footnote to the transition of a country from weak to strong
The extant subspecies of the Dachshund elk was discovered by the French naturalist and missionary David in 1865 during an animal and plant expedition at the Royal Hunting Garden in Nanhaizi, Beijing, and he transported the purchased elk deer skins and skulls back to France through the director of the French Museum of Natural History, the zoologist Milne Berger. Edwards named a new species: David's deer, and the elk has since given it a foreign name. Beijing Nanhaizi is also named after this science and has become the scientific discovery site of elk.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Yongding River in Jingnan flooded, and the flood washed away the walls of Nanhaizi, and the royal court was reduced to a zeal country, and many elk escaped and became the food of the hungry.
In the autumn of 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance took advantage of the corruption of the Qing government and the emptiness of defense to invade Beijing in one fell swoop, and the elk inhabiting Nanhaizi were robbed and shot by the Eight-Power Alliance, and the rare species unique to China became extinct in China, and the Nanhaizi in Beijing became the native extinction site of the elk.
Europeans became very interested in elk as soon as they were discovered. Between 1867 and 1894, they obtained a number of live elk by various means. The live elk were eventually sent to Paris, France, Berlin, Cologne, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium, where they were scattered in zoos.
At the same time as the elk became extinct in mainland China, the British Duke of Befort heard the story of the elk from Hagenbeck, who specialized in providing him with animals, and was very interested, and from October 1894 to March 1901, he bought the only 18 remaining elk in the world and kept them in his Wubang Temple estate. According to official records of the Temple of Ubang, the number of elk in the area reached 244 in 1947, and the elk population continued here.
On June 10, 1918, the earliest Chinese elk research literature was published in the Journal of the Naturalistic Society of the National Wuchang Higher Normal School. For the first time, the author Xue Deyan comprehensively and scientifically introduced China's special animals - elk to the Chinese people, and issued a call for the elk to go home, which was also the first call a hundred years ago.
Since then, China's scientific community and non-governmental insights have repeatedly contacted foreign countries and called on the return of elk.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1956 and 1973, the owner of the Wubang Temple, through the British government and non-governmental organizations, contacted the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Zoological Society of China, and each donated two pairs of elk to return to China and stock them in the Beijing Zoo. However, due to reproductive disorders and environmental discomfort, the population has not been revived.
In 1983, then Minister of Health Cui Yueli went to visit elk at the Wubang Temple Manor, and on March 17, 1984, at the invitation of the Ministry of Health, Maya Boyd, a representative of the Wubang Temple and a doctor from Oxford University, came to China to conduct a four-month elk fossil study.
On December 1, 1984, Li Peng, then Vice Premier of the State Council, held a meeting in the Great Hall of the People to learn about the progress of the elk return project to China and agreed to the elk garden site in Nanhaizi, Beijing.
On July 17, 1985, China and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Agreement on the Re-introduction of Elk in China and the United Kingdom. This is the first official agreement on the protection of elk reintroduction on the mainland.
Since then, as described in the ancient poem, "the dragon and snake hide in daze, and the elk swims in the grass." The ecological scene of "qifeng is safe in Wuwu, and the diving fish are happy in algae" is slowly displayed in the land of China.
In 1865, elk were scientifically discovered in the South China Sea; in 1900, it became extinct in the native wild; and in 1985, the elk that had wandered overseas returned to their hometown. The elk has witnessed the ups and downs and prosperity of the Chinese nation, and its every gorgeous turn is a vivid footnote to the country's prosperity. This is exactly "the country is prosperous, and only then can the elk be prosperous".
Jingzhou, Hubei Province, Shishou Elk National Nature Reserve. Image source: People's Daily News
An example of the conservation of the world's endangered species
On August 24, 1985, the elk, which had been away from their hometown for nearly a hundred years, returned to their hometown. The 20 elk donated by the British Wubang Temple arrived in the capital Beijing by plane and arrived at the protection site - Beijing Nanhaizi. In 1987, 18 more elk were donated to the Temple in elk park, and the number of re-introduced populations in Beijing elk park was 38.
Beijing Nanhaizi became the place of return of elk because of the reintroduction of elk.
Beijing Nanhaizi is the scientific discovery site (type species production area), native extinction site, and reintroduction return site of elk, which is also rare in the history of science. The establishment of a protected area for a species in a country's capital is also unique or rare in the world.
In 1986, jointly approved by the Ministry of Forestry and the People's Government of Jiangsu Province, WWF and the Zoological Society of London selected 39 elk from seven zoos in the United Kingdom and stocked them in the Dafeng Elk Nature Reserve. This is the first elk nature reserve established in China.
In 1997 and 1998, the State Council approved Jiangsu Dafeng and Hubei Shishou as "Elk National Nature Reserves" respectively. Elk conservation became a national strategy.
Since 1988, the Beijing Elk Ecological Experiment Center has begun to export elk to places suitable for elk to live, to build a new home for elk and enrich the genetic diversity of elk. By 2021, the experimental center will export more than 590 elk and establish 44 habitats and conservation sites across the country. Including the export of 94 elk through three times, the foundation population was established for the Shishou National Elk Conservation Area in Hubei Province.
Since 1998, Jiangsu Dafeng has carried out wild release experiments in Huangtan Beach on five occasions. In the spring and summer of the same year, Shishou in Hubei Province was washed away by floods due to the fence of the reserve, and some elk spread naturally to the surrounding area with the flood and other natural populations to form 5 natural populations. In 2018, the Beijing Elk Ecological Experiment Center, with the support of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, released 47 elk in the Poyang Lake area of Jiangxi Province. At present, the distribution of elk in the country basically covers the original ancient distribution area.
Important progress has been made in scientific research such as elk breeding and conservation, breeding management, and disease prevention and control, and the "three-step" strategy of elk population rejuvenation, rewilding training, and natural population recovery has achieved excellent results. By 2021, 84 ex situ conservation populations of elk have been established, with a total of nearly 10,000 elk.
Today, the image of elk as a living fossil of Chinese culture is more prominent, and as the pearl of ecological civilization construction, it is more brilliant. In the white paper "China's Biodiversity Conservation" released by the mainland in 2021, it is written: "Elk that once disappeared in the wild have established three major protected populations in Nanhaizi, Beijing, Dafeng, Jiangsu, and Shishou, Hubei. ”
In 2021, Mullemar, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, said in her speech at the 4th Beijing (International) Elk Culture Conference: "The re-introduction of elk is a microcosm of Biodiversity Conservation in China, providing a best example for the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and a model for the conservation of endangered species in the world. ”
Elk lucky, ecological lucky! National treasure elk to the future, ecological harmony will always accompany. (Author Bai Jiade Liu Pei Hu Jining Editor Wang Qiang)