Recently, the Yangtze crocodile has become very popular on the Internet, because the Anhui Yangzi Crocodile Breeding Research Center has once again released the Yangtze crocodile in the wild. In addition, the cumulative number of releases has exceeded 1,000, so some netizens are worried that the Yangtze crocodile hurts people in the wild.
Releasing crocodiles into the wild sounds scary, but the Yangtze crocodile is a "different" in the crocodile family. Compared with his distant relatives, Nile crocodile, saltwater crocodile, etc., five big and three thick, ferocious and violent, Yangzi crocodile can simply be called the "gentleman" of crocodiles
They are small in size, about 1.5 meters long, weigh about 36 kilograms, one of the smallest crocodile species in the world, at the same time, The Yangtze crocodile is docile and slow to eat fish, shrimp, snails, river mussels, and humans are completely absent from their diets.
In addition, the Yangtze crocodile likes to be quiet, and some zoos will ask tourists to be quiet when feeding the Yangzi crocodile, so as not to frighten it from eating.
Some netizens also shared that a Yangzi crocodile in his hometown who likes to watch people wash clothes will be knocked on the head by the grandmother with a stick. There are also Anhui netizens who share that adult Yangtze crocodiles can even beat a big goose.
Of course, the Yangtze crocodile is not completely uninspiring, in the breeding season (June-September), the female crocodile will have nest protection behavior, at this time, if the staff wants to transfer the crocodile, blindfold it, it will basically not move.
Don't look at the Yangtze crocodile, it is an ancient species of the same era as the dinosaurs, and it is a real "living fossil". But this kind of "old life star" who lived on the earth for 200 million years was once on the verge of extinction in modern times. As habitat decreases, the number of wild Yangtze crocodiles continues to decrease. In 1973, the results of the joint survey of Chinese and American scientists were: only 300-500 wild Yangtze crocodiles remained. By 1999, that number had plummeted to 150 and was declining at a rate of 4 to 6 percent per year.
The Yangtze crocodile is a species unique to China among the 24 crocodile species in the world, and it is not only a national treasure of China, but also a treasure of the world. In order to protect them, the state not only listed them as a first-class protected animal, but also established the Anhui Yangzi Crocodile Breeding Center in Xuancheng, Anhui Province, and began to breed Yangzi crocodile artificially.
Many people in Xuancheng, Anhui Province, are deeply touched by the situation of the Yangtze crocodile, and the local people call the Yangzi crocodile "earth dragon". When they were young, they could often hear the cries of earth dragons, but when they grew up, they never heard them again. After the Yangtze crocodile was listed as a protected animal, many residents spontaneously began to protect it.
Among them, this old man named She Shizhen has also been on CCTV for 39 years because of the protection of Yangzi crocodiles. In She Shizhen's eyes, the "earth dragon" is ugly, but it is very gentle, and the villagers do not disturb each other, and get along with each other very harmoniously. For 39 years, the family of three of the elderly She Shizhen has relayed to guard the wild Yangzi crocodile.
Now that the four sons have bought houses in the city, the old man still insists on going to the reservoir every day to roost and turn around. She still remembers the time when the reservoir dried up in 1982, when the surrounding villagers came to electric fish, and she and her wife stared at the reservoir day and night. Later, her wife left, and She Shizhen took her grandson to see her Yangtze crocodile who guarded half her life...
The extinction of almost every living being is irreversible, and the photographs we see in textbooks now were once living "inhabitants" of the planet. She Shizhen may not be able to say the truth about protecting these rare species, but she knows that this is the same as afforestation, the merit is in the contemporary era, and the benefit is in the thousands of autumns!