Now everyone knows that Zijin is a sticky, "leading the meal" roe deer.
Wen | Lin Qiuming
Editor| Yao Lu
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That little news was announced in September 2020.
At that time, the early autumn in Nanjing began, the city faded from heat and dryness, and people were willing to go outside. At the corner of the entrance to the roe deer slope of the Red Mountain Forest Zoo, a pale blue overmolded cardboard was hung, and the top of the cardboard was written with four small characters of "Animal Death", and the content of less than 100 words summarized the life of a small roe deer.
"On the morning of 16 September 2020, Zijin (male) was found to be insanity, unwilling to move and eat, and died in the middle of the staff's examination and treatment (around 9:40). Zijin has a friendly, calm personality, takes the lead in eating, and is a leader-like existence in the group. We miss it a lot. Thank you for the time it took us. R.I.P.」
Some of the tourists stopped and read the obituary word for word. Frequent visitors recognize "Zijin", the most lively of the group' relatives, and bid them farewell through this paper. The obituary was later posted on the Internet, causing some discussion on the Internet and some small surprises. In the past, we rarely saw zoos record and announce the death of a non-star animal, and their disappearance was invisible and silent, but now everyone knows that Zijin is a sticky, "leading to eat" roe deer.
Peng Peila's daily interaction with "Zijin" Image source Peng Peila Weibo
This spring, I met the author of the obituary, Peng Peila, a former breeder of Zijin, in the local conservation area of the Hongshan Forest Zoo in Nanjing. She was born in 1989 because her father had studied abroad in Canberra, the capital of Australia, and got a somewhat cute name. She wears two low braided braids and a wide-brimmed hat pressed against her head, and after a long time together, you will find that she is somewhat similar to a roe deer, gentle, shy, and her eyes are bent when she speaks. The small satchel she carried with her hung a walkie-talkie, and inside it was the voice of a colleague calling her, "Pull Master Pull Master!" "Master La" followed these calls and went to solve the problem.
Two years after writing the obituary for Zijin, Peng Peila told me that it was an important little thing in her breeder work.
It was a slightly painful morning. After arriving at the post that day, Peng Peila fed Zijin according to the custom, and found it curled up under the shed in a kneeling position, which was a very unusual move. Unlike other roe deer, Zijin is more affectionate, and usually it is always the first to rush out to eat. She stepped forward and tried to lure it up with food, but got no response. The situation was somewhat serious, and she had never seen a roe deer stand up before. After giving the vet an emergency call, she tried to touch it with her hand. At this moment, Zijin suddenly stood up, staggered and slowly walked to the other side, she judged that it was hoping to avoid humans. Before it had walked 5 meters, it "poofed" and fell to the ground.
A few minutes later, the veterinarian arrived, and they decided to drive the car up and take Zijin to the veterinary hospital. This brief gap, it lies quietly on the ground in the exhibition area. Pembella took it in her arms, and it did not resist, its head obediently resting on her lap. In the first two weeks, Zijin began to receive "hand feeding", which shows that it has developed sufficient trust in the breeders. Penpera caressed the back of its head with the palm of her hand, stroking its soft and warm ears over and over again, as a breeder with 7 years of experience, Penpeia knew that Zijin was leaving her little by little at this moment. She and Zijin spoke softly, "Zijin, it's okay, it's okay."
In her soothing voice, Zijin weakened her breathing, and the muscles of her whole body no longer exerted any more strength, and finally jerked a few times and did not move.
The car carrying Zijin drove down the slope of the deer and did not send it back. Pembella watched Zijin's autopsy at the veterinary hospital, and the veterinarian told her that Zijin had lost her vital signs in the car. Zijin's last moment on this earth was spent by Peng Peila.
At the end of the day, back at the office, Peng Peila was a little distressed, how to communicate the news of Zijin's death with the volunteers, colleagues, and tourists who worked together?
"If an animal were you watching and walking, especially when you went through the last few minutes of its life, you'd love to end up leaving something for it." The keeper is the person in charge of the animals and has the responsibility to inform them, whether they are born or die. Life, old age, illness and death are common in zoos, and there's no way to avoid that fact." She said.
Tweeting is the easiest way to do it, but she thinks it's too frivolous. She suddenly longed for herself to write an obituary for Zijin. The office had some cardboard, which was usually used to make the animals' introduction display board, and she quickly wrote the obituary content with a marker pen on the cardboard, took pictures and sent them to her colleague Chen Yuelong and Bai Yali, the head of the mission department, "Can I do this?"
This move was endorsed by two colleagues. Bai Yali suggested that the title should not use "obituary", and the color should not be black and white, otherwise it would appear too heavy. Peng Peila finally chose to use the four words "animal death" to briefly describe zijin's life, and did not write the specific cause of zijin, because this belongs to the internal information of the veterinary hospital. After writing, she oversculpted the cardboard and fixed it with a pull strip to the door of the purple and gold cage, a place where tourists and the staff of the roe deer slope would pass.
Ms. Peng said she liked a book called "Confessions of Life and Death at the Zoo," and that the author, Hiroshi Abe, was once a keeper at the Asahiyama Zoo. When an animal dies, asahiyama Zoo keepers will put funeral signs in front of its former houses and inform visitors of the cause of death, and children who like it will send flowers and wreaths. Obituary shows the public that zoos are more than just amazing and beautiful.
But even with this awareness, zoos have a hard time saying goodbye to every animal. When animals such as two crawlers and fish are in groups, it is difficult to identify specific individuals. In addition, if the keeper and an animal are not closely connected enough to participate too much in its life, it is impossible to write an honest obituary. Obituary is a vehicle for keepers to mourn after the death of animals they regard as companions and friends.
"Zoos are places where life and death come into direct confrontation, so zoos never hide death." Hiroshi Abe wrote.
Peng Peila and colleagues hand-painted animal introduction plaque Lin Qiuming photo
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Not hiding death, this rule doesn't work in every zoo.
This isn't the first time Pompera has thought of writing obituaries for animals. Eight years ago, after graduating from veterinary medicine, she worked as a koala keeper in a safari park.
What few people know is that because genes carry retroviruses, koalas are prone to cancer outbreaks when they are stressed or have poor surroundings, and organ failures everywhere make it extremely painful. In Australia, in order to ensure the quality of life of koalas, such koalas will be euthanized. But for most zoos in the country, this is unacceptable, "they will think that it is responsible to rescue them in the end."
Unfortunately, many koalas in her koala hall suffer from this disease. She had seen koalas covered in open wounds, covered with ulcers.
A five-year-old koala developed leukemia due to retrovirus, and Pembella carried it to the hospital, and during the examination, it died. She wanted to write an obituary for it, but in a highly commercial zoo, every piece of paper that was revealed needed to go through layers of approvals—the copy was written and sent to the design department, and the design department returned the draft, and the final draft was reviewed and revised by the publicity department before it could be printed. Some zookeepers firmly believe that zoos are a paradise of vitality and vitality, and there is no need to display "negative" messages.
Later, another koala died, and on the dissection table, they found that in addition to the dense tumor in its abdominal cavity, there was a baby in the nursery bag. Pompeola asked the veterinarian to leave a fur specimen for the mother. The reason for the final persuasion of the leaders was that the specimens could be touched by tourists. Underneath the koala specimen, there is a nameplate. She wrote its name on the sign, the time of its birth and death, and the fact that it had come from Australia and rested here. She also persistently added a cautionary note: The reason why many koalas die at the zoo is because of the pressure of captivity.
Initially, It was difficult for Pompela to face the successive deaths of koalas. Stay calm during work hours, but after work, she will always cry uncontrollably. Not many people know about the koala's departure except the keepers, and it will soon be replaced by a new koala. Tourists won't notice a koala missing because no one recognizes it.
The koala under Peng Peila's lens is the source of Peng Peila's Weibo
Loud names and stories are a privilege, belonging to star-level animals, but also to lucky twins or triplets, or animals that have been on variety shows and have come into contact with stars, they will be loved by tourists, and their deaths will also bring great shock to tourists. But most of the other animals live anonymously, "there are no tourists who come specifically for them, no people who like themselves." Likewise, Pembella said, their deaths would be silently buried.
This pained Pompeela, who described herself as a somewhat rebellious breeder. Foreign experts occasionally come to do exchanges, and her superiors arrange for her to accompany her interpreters. Once, they went to see an elephant show in the park together, and a foreign expert asked her, how was this performance? She replied, I think these animals are pitiful. Experts say that among the translators sent to me by this zoo, you are the first person who dares to say this to me.
They reached trust and began working together to improve animal welfare. She took him to observe the hidden problems of the zoo, and the experts wrote suggestions and repeatedly sought out the leaders through her to implement the follow-up. With the cooperation of the two, the zoo finally had some changes, such as gradually canceling animal performances.
She always wanted to do something for the animals. Majoring in veterinary medicine at university, she managed more than a dozen experimental dogs in the lab. She couldn't bear to keep them in cages every day, and she took turns leading them out for a walk every day, figuring out how to make their lives better, which made her understand that she couldn't be a really calm and good veterinarian. Before leaving school, she adopted one of the experimental dogs, and four others, which she secretly sent to the animal rescue agency, because of this incident, she almost failed to graduate.
And going on, that's when I was a kid. She grew up as a child with strong feelings for animals, but she did not grow up in an animal-loving family. Due to the lack of breeding experience, the mother cat in the family gave birth to a deformed kitten. The kittens died prematurely, and she cried for her mother to take her to find a place to bury them, and death was thrown naked in front of her. No one had taught her how to treat animals reasonably, and she wondered what to do to keep herself from suffering so much when animals died, so that they could live better.
According to her words, near graduation, she and her original major completely "broke the net", noticed the zoo's recruitment of keepers, and she began to realize that her real happiness is to raise animals and create welfare for them.
What kind of job a breeder is, and what specific criteria there are, she is difficult to define. She is now in charge of the Hongshan Zoo's indigenous conservation area, a new exhibition area of the Hongshan Zoo that opened last October and brings together three natural ecosystems of farmland, wetlands and mountain forests. The "residents" of the local area are all from the Wildlife Rescue Center, and the exhibits, breeding and protecting the native animals living around Nanjing. The leadership of the Red Mountain Zoo gave Peng Peila enough freedom not to stipulate that the local area must be a specific appearance, which is like an "autonomous region" of the Red Mountain Zoo, where many wonderful experiments and attempts take place.
"Indigenous Area Convention" Photo by Lin Qiuming
At the Red Mountain Zoo, Pembella received unprecedented trust from a zoo willing to give its keepers. Unlike other highly commercial zoos, where food cannot be fed or animals are not performed, "the zoo is not a place to hunt or entertain, but a place to feel the greatness of life and the wonders of nature." Shen Zhijun, director of the Red Mountain Zoo, described the zoo as "a place where people can empathize with life."
The breeders in the native area, some teachers, some learning to draw, sound like they are not compatible with animals, but their commonality is that they are somewhat "socially afraid" and do not like to deal with humans, so they decided to take care of animals.
Breeder Zhang Xiaotong is a "communicator" in the local area, she used to work as a primary school teacher, like to stay with children, but her work in education is not smooth, decided to come to Hongshan. When she saw the family with the child coming, her radar would start, and she would go up to explain to the child from beginning to end, and when she reached the exit of the local area, the child would be able to hold hands with her affectionately. Pompera was often surprised by this.
Yang Minjue, the "maintainer of the rules", wears a braid, sees animals as more than everything, and devotes his life to it. She would suddenly rush into the office hut in the local area, pull Peng Peila, and excitedly perform the new action of the roe deer she had just seen, "It picked up the leaf, put it on the ground and smashed it with its feet, making a nest!" 」
A recent trainee breeder, Li Xuan, is a college student studying painting, who does not seem to like to talk to people, and can hold a bug for an hour and immerse himself in his own world. Physically and empirically, she was not yet a full-fledged keeper, but Pembella was willing to keep her for the simple reason that she was full of enthusiasm for observing nature, and could always find out where there was another tiny excrement.
The native area is a place where many possibilities can be accommodated, and Pembela is trying to accommodate these eccentric and cute young people who have escaped from human society into the animal world with this value. She has recently gained some new insights, she found that like the ecosystem, a diverse environment can only become better, "Zoos often say animal welfare, in fact, people's welfare is sometimes quite poor, many people can not grow into a better person, because no one pays attention to their welfare, accept their differences." 」
One of Pembella's favorite corners is the roe deer exhibition area. When early summer arrives, the plants grow wildly, the nearby roe deer lean out and look out, the wild birds drink water and bathe by the waterhole, and if you are lucky, you can see wild boars and small chamois walking back and forth on the back of the hill. In her vision, the native area is like a village, and the animals are close neighbors of humans, of course, the premise is that the animals have names and complete the identification of individual animals. Now, with the exception of two reptiles and fish, most of the native animals have nicknames, the small clawed otter with a round head and round eyes is called "small cake", and the red fox with hair like a golden wheat field is called "wheat". Recently, they have been trying to distinguish the difference between the four crocodiles. But the big toad was choking enough, and they didn't have the confidence to be able to tell.
The keepers prepared a small corridor for the earthworms, right at the exit of the native area. On the path, which is about 5 meters long, the soft soil is covered with fallen leaves and wood chips, and soil animals such as earthworms can "cross the road" to reach the farmland. The frogs in the drainage ditch can better jump to the ground through the "frog passage".
Last month, the staff planted dark green introductory signs for wild fruits and wild grasses on the ground in the exhibition area, "Fire Thorn", "Bearded Seed", and "Grass", which are usually regarded as weeds, and also have the opportunity to be identified.
Children observing the Chinese toad Lin Qiuming photo
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At the entrance to the home area, there is a notice board titled "Animal Headlines", where visitors will see the latest movements of the animals.
"The wax cicada and the ailanth moth have a long, smelly tea party on a tree in the native area."
"In recent months, the young and vigorous little chamois Taotao (male) has often over-chased and bumped the two female chamois in the exhibition area, and in order to relieve the pressure on the two ladies, Taotao is now temporarily moving Taotao to live in a non-display sports field behind the raccoon."
"Spring is coming" - "At 9 a.m. on February 24, the keepers found a newborn porcupine baby in the cave of the mountain porcupine exhibition area, whose mother was bamboo and whose father was taro."
Here, life and death can be shown freely. In this spring conversation, Pembella told me a story about how people here commemorate a little pig.
It came to the Red Mountain Zoo the previous summer. On the day it came, it was placed in a cardboard box, and the person who sent it said it was a wild boar that only needed to be rescued. When the rescue center people opened it, they found that where was the wild boar, the piglet was small, the pink pig skin was printed with a large black pattern, and the eyes were large and bright, and it was clear that it was a small fragrant pig that had been abandoned. Since it came by accident, let's call it "accident."
Accidentally, temporarily reside in a rescue center. Everyone quickly fell in love with this well-behaved little fragrant pig, which had no fixed cages and rotated around in different cages, but it always survived safely and could help with cleaning. For example, during the time when living under the parrot cage, the parrot will accidentally eat all the food dropped by the parrot, and then use the pig's nose to arch the hay in the cage to be fluffy.
After work, Pembella sneaked to the rescue center to see the accident. The unexpected stay will decide how to raise it next, and she and Chen Yuelong had a discussion about this. Accidents are domestic animals, can not be released into the wild, the carrying capacity of zoos is limited, "accidents" such as fragrant pigs belong to the excess resources in the zoo, the most likely to go to the end, is to be harmless treatment, that is, euthanasia. They are reluctant to choose this path, to find a reason to stay for accidents, "it can be used as an educational animal, for tourists to do science." 」 "Yes, it can also help clean the cage!" "It can also enrich the environment for other animals!" "Stay and stay!" The two hit it off.
Since then, he has been allowed to become a mobile resident of the zoo. It is intimate with people, shouts "accident" and it will run over. It has its own business card, and every time it goes to an exhibition area, the keepers hang it up for it - "Although it is not a wild animal, we have found that accidental life in a zoo can bring a lot of meaning: because it is good at eating and arching, it can help us clean the remaining food in some animal cages while loosening the land and increasing the vitality of the cushion; when some new or solitary animals are nervous, the usual unexpected presence can create a relaxed atmosphere of 'happy eating' and make them adapt as soon as possible..."
It was the second guest in the local conservation area and became a roommate with the red fox "Maizi", who first moved in. In order to grab food, the accident and the wheat clashed, the wheat bit an accidental pig's nose, the accident did not show weakness, it has grown relatively strong, if it provokes it to be angry, it will rush over to demonstrate.
The breeders led the accident to the various exhibition areas, sometimes to the badger side, sometimes to the small chamois side, the breeder was busy on the side, and the accident took care of itself and arched the ground and turned the ground. Everyone loves this little pig, there are new keepers coming, and one of the things they have to learn is to take an accident out for a walk.
Peng Peila took the "accident" to the local area The source of the picture source Peng Peila Weibo
These all ended on the night of the great cooling. On November 6, 2021, the Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory issued a yellow warning signal for cold waves. The cold wave arrived on November 7, and the minimum temperature in Nanjing was only 3 degrees. Peng Peila was on a business trip to Shanghai for training, when he suddenly received a WeChat message from another breeder, Yang Minjue: Accidentally died.
No one knows the exact time of the accidental death. As more and more guests in the home area, they were accidentally relocated to a more remote hillside. Recall that in those days, in order to resist the cooling, the keepers were busy adding hay and warm items to the cages of various animals, but only the accidental nests were missed. The domestic pig, hairless and unprotected by hay, accidentally caught a cold that winter night and died the next morning.
Yang Minjue said to Peng Peila, you scold me, I feel better. Peng Peila knew that Yang Minjue was sadder than anyone. This young keeper, who regards animals as more important than her own life, must have blamed herself for the death of animals because of her own mistakes. Pembela didn't want to deepen her guilt any longer, and they needed to face the unexpected death together.
Returning from a business trip, Pembela called three keepers from the native area. Throughout the morning, their emotional state was a little bad, they never spoke, did not smile, and only buried their heads in work. Some questions need to be digested, such as what really happened at that time, such as what everyone thinks in the process, such as how to avoid similar things in the future, and when these issues are discussed and reflected, in the end, they also want to do one thing: write an obituary for the accident.
In her book, Obituary First, Then Heaven, the well-known obituary journalist Marilyn Johnson writes, "The most important value of any good obituary is that when a different person dies, it tries to make us aware of our loss as quickly as possible." The same can be said for "animals", every animal is beautiful and extraordinary. At the end of the obituary, Pembella wrote: "Thank you for the memories and valuable lessons it has taught us, and I hope that everyone will remember it, because it is the most special pig in the world."
Piggy's obituary of "accident" was nailed to the bulletin board from last winter to this spring. Illiterate children, with the help of their parents, read the obituary word for word. In the upper right corner of the obituary, at some point, a small white wild chrysanthemum was pierced by the people who came and went.
The seasons rotate, and there are always animals dying and being born on this hill. Spring is almost over, and the cardboard on the bulletin board is facing a new round of replacement. The unexpected story was picked up by Peng Peila and put into a cardboard box. She rarely discussed the accidental death with Yang Minjue again. But in last year's year-end summary report, she found that Ms. Yang recorded the death of each animal in great detail, such as a small turtle in foster care or a baby wild bird that fell from a bird's nest in a tree. Peng Peila felt that Yang Minjue had gained some growth.
Zijin's last gift to Pompera was two pointed fangs. She asked the veterinarian to keep them and leave the fangs in the native area, which can be a special feature for visiting tourists. She remembers watching Zijin being dissected step by step, she was calm, meticulously observing each step, "This is the last message it leaves you." It teaches you how to do better next time, to do more for animals while they are alive."
Hiroshi Abe also writes in the book that the relationship he established with the animals before he was born will not affect the breeder's final dissection, which is a solemn farewell ceremony, "that emotion is not so much sadness as gratitude." Thank you, you've worked so hard for so long."
Piglet's obituary of "accident" Lin Qiuming photo