Source: China News Network
Original title:
[Ten years @ every struggling you] Visit the "China Yangtze Crocodile Village": 100 million years of "living fossils" continue to write a new chapter
Editor's Note:
Every Chinese who strives to live is the most beautiful strivers. It is precisely because of hundreds of millions of strivers that there is today's China. Ten years, salute to every struggling you. Let us work together to forge a new era and forge ahead into the future.
"China Yangzi Crocodile Village" (data map) Chen Xianzhong provided the picture
Huzhou, China, April 5 (Reporter Shi Zinan) During the Qingming holiday, the weather was fine. Located in the "China Yangzi Crocodile Village" located in the northwest of Changxing County, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, at the junction of Si'an and Lincheng towns, thousands of Yangzi crocodiles have come out of the cave. Some probe slightly in the water, looking around warily, while others lie lazily on the shore and soak up the sun.
Yangzi crocodile is a rare species endemic to China, belonging to the national first-level key protected wild animals, and is also one of the smallest crocodile species in the world, which has a history of more than 200 million years, and is known as a "living fossil" because it lived in the same period as dinosaurs.
At the time of its endangerment, in order to expand the number of wild populations, in 1979, the villagers of Yinjiabian in Si'an Town spontaneously sent 11 Yangzi crocodiles into the "Upper Eight Acres" pond to protect them in situ with bamboo fences and establish the Yinjiabian Village-level Yangzi Crocodile Conservation Area.
Adult Yangtze crocodile released from the wild (data map) Chen Xianzhong provided a picture
After more than 40 years of development, the village-level protected area has been upgraded to a provincial-level protected area, and the population of Yangzi crocodile has increased from 11 to 8406.
"From the initial spontaneous and rescue protection, to the prosperity of the Yangzi crocodile family and the creation of the 'Chinese Yangzi crocodile village', the villagers of Yinjiabian Village have made an indispensable contribution." Li Hui, director of the management office of the Changxing Yangzi Crocodile Conservation Area, said that in the harsh environment, the villagers tried their best to feed the Yangzi crocodile.
It was not until 1984 that the Yangtze crocodile generation was conceived.
"In order to maintain the natural wildness and genetic traits of the Yangtze crocodile, the reserve allows the Yangtze crocodile to reproduce naturally by simulating the natural ecological environment." Li Hui said that for more than 40 years, the Yangtze crocodile has maintained a wild lifestyle of natural predation, mating, spawning, incubation and breeding, and wintering.
Following the arrival of the second and third generations of children in 1997 and 2006, a certain number of Yangzi crocodiles are now naturally bred out of the reserve every year.
In 2012, the reserve launched the second phase of the wild release project, and released 1230 core population Yangzi crocodiles within 10 years, all of which were injected with electronic chips for identifying individual identity information and tracking observation in the field.
"When a certain amount of protection is reached, too much artificial intervention will lead to insufficient wildness of the Yangtze crocodile and it is difficult to maintain its species genes." Li Hui said bluntly that the wild release project is also to verify that the bred Yangtze crocodile can "rely on itself" in the wild.
In order to achieve the sustainable development of wild animals, the reserve also cooperates with Zhejiang University to carry out a series of research work on the Yangtze crocodile, and uses the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile Internet technology and other means to develop and build a set of environmental monitoring and behavior perception systems for the Yangtze crocodile.
At present, as the second largest Yangzi crocodile nature reserve in China, the "China Yangzi Crocodile Village" covers an area of 132.98 hectares, which is composed of the natural breeding of Yangzi crocodile mother and child lake, crocodile series pond, crocodile specimen showroom, Yangzi crocodile resort and so on.
"March-May and September-November are the peak tourist seasons for the reserve, receiving about 600,000 visitors a year." Zhou Hui, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Yangzi Crocodile Scenic Area Management Co., Ltd., introduced that the reserve also launched a research course in 2020, and has carried out nearly 100 research and learning activities.
Tourists visiting the Yangtze crocodile (data map) Courtesy of Zhou Hui
For example, the visit of the Yangtze Crocodile Science Popularization Museum can allow tourists and students to have a general understanding of the history and development of the Yangtze crocodile; the human crocodile tour project can take a boat into the living world of the Yangtze crocodile and observe its living environment at close range...
"We are striving to build the 'China Yangzi Crocodile Village' into a 'habitat for rare and endangered species in the world and ecological education demonstration site' that integrates the functions of science education, nature experience, outdoor development, etc., and play a further role in science popularization." Zhou Hui said.
More than 40 years of wind and rain road. At present, the "China Yangzi Crocodile Village" is still carrying a sense of mission passed down from generation to generation, and continues to walk on the road of protection and science popularization of the Yangtze crocodile. China's billion-year-old "living fossils" will also continue to write a new chapter.
Editor-in-charge: Xiao Tian