Written by | Dong Xin
On the afternoon of May 9, Premier Li Keqiang and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that during the visit, the Chinese side will provide a new pair of crested ibises to japan to reflect the friendship between the Chinese people and the Japanese people.
This is the second time in 11 years that China has supplied crested ibises to Japan.
The crested ibis was once widely distributed throughout East Asia. Birds of the ibis family lived in the Eocene 60 million years ago and are a rare "living fossil".
A pair of crested ibises, why can it reflect the friendship between China and Japan? This brings us to the Japanese love for the crested ibis, which is comparable to the love for the giant panda.
<h1>"Japanese"</h1>
Crested ibises (huan, two sounds), ancient known as the vermilion heron, red crested heron, is endemic to East Asia, male and female homomorphic, adult birds with white as the base, but the upper and lower body feathers and flying feathers are slightly stained with a faint pink, the back pillow has a long willow leaf-shaped crown, the forehead to the cheeks of the skin is bare, bright red.
The Crested Ibis's Latin scientific name is "Nipponia nippon", which literally translates to "Japan of Japan", and the bird name is named after the country, which is enough to see its origin with Japan. In the 19th century, it was the international convention of the time to rely on the naming of the place of discovery, and as a bird of the East, the crested ibis entered the vision of Westerners from Japan, and only then did it have a Latin scientific name.
The crested ibis is the bird most similar to the legendary crane, and also has the title of "auspicious bird" in China. In Japan, the crane is a major symbol of the imperial family, and the crested ibis, which resembles a crane, often appears in various records of the imperial family.
In Japan's oldest history book, the Nihon Shoki (720 AD), there is this text:
"Bury the Emperor of Appeasement in the Peach Blossom Bird Hill of the Uighur Kingdom" "Bury Emperor Gonin on the Narrow Peach Blossom Bird Slope" "Bury Emperor Xuanhua in the Peach Blossom Bird Slope of the Great Uighur Kingdom".
The "peach blossom bird" is another name for the crested ibis in Japan, and the three Japanese emperors are buried in cemeteries named after the crested ibis, and these royal cemeteries are the habitat of the crested ibis.
The feathers shed by the crested ibises were made into various weapons or ritual tools, such as arrow feathers, which were the favorites of the Japanese nobles at that time. When the Japanese emperor is crowned, the first wing feather of the crested ibis is used as an ornament, and the scarlet color on the crested ibis is also regarded as the "national color" of Japan.
In addition, at Ise Shrine, dedicated to the ancestor of the Japanese Emperor, Amaterasu, every 20 years, a "palace relocation ceremony" is held, and one of the ceremonies is very complicated, one of which is to wrap two crested ibis feathers on the handle of the sword of the treasure in the palace, "Sumi Flow horizontal sword". The specifications of the feathers require a length of more than 5 inches, a width of 1 inch and a width of more than 1 minute, a bright color, and symmetry between the left and right.
<h1>The History of the Japanese Demise of the Sacred Bird</h1>
The chinese crested ibises are welcome again, which should be the news that makes many Japanese people happy.
Since the 1970s, after normal diplomatic relations between China and Japan, Japan has begun to make requests to China for crested ibises. From the very beginning of the request to China to find, to the later request for China to give gifts, and then to the later, to provide financial assistance for the protection of Chinese crested ibises for a long time. There are too many stories between China and Japan about this bird.
Some small partners may ask, Japan regards it as the sacred bird of the country, why not protect it well?
Gao Yuefang introduced in her master's thesis "Research on the Conservation of Endangered Species Crested Ibis" -
Japan was once the country with the most widespread distribution and abundance of crested ibises. Laws and regulations on the protection and use of crested ibises also appeared in Japan at the earliest. In 1722, the Book of Birds Raising Was stipulated that some birds, including crested ibises, could not be hunted privately.
During the feudal period (before 1868), the hunting of wild animals in Japan was more restrictive, so crested ibises were quite common at that time. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the feudal government was abolished, and the ban on hunting was relaxed for a time, which led to a rapid increase in the number of hunters.
The japanese crested ibis population decreased dramatically between 1868 and 1900. After World War II, in 1952, Japan conducted a large-scale survey of the whole country and found only 32 crested ibises, located on Sado Island and the Noto Peninsula.
In 1967, Japan set up a conservation center in the village of Shinho on Sado Island, but the captured crested ibises died one after another because they were not adapted to the captive environment, and only the female crested ibis, Akin, was still alive.
In January 1981, Japan captured all five remaining wild crested ibises and took them to the Sado Island Conservation Center for breeding for "emergency rescue", but they also died one after another, leaving Alu and Akin incapacitated.
In 2003, the crested ibises died, the 27-year-old crested ibis" "old lady" Akin died, and the crested ibises of Japanese descent all became extinct.
△ This is a crested ibis, photographed on May 3 in Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, in the Crested Ibis.
<h1>China and Japan have been cooperating for 33 years</h1>
At the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the Japan Pavilion exhibited the story of "Saving the Crested Ibis", which tells the story of the collaboration more than 30 years ago.
In the early 1970s, before China and Japan could normalize diplomatic relations, Japanese politicians wrote to Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, through personal connections, hoping to pay attention to the situation of wild crested ibises.
After the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan in 1972, Japan's Environment Agency formally submitted a request to the Environment Committee of the State Council of China to search for wild crested ibises in China.
Are there still crested ibises in China? According to The Shaanxi Daily, the reply from the Chinese Forestry Ministry and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the State Council at that time was that after 1964, there was no news of the crested ibis.
"No news is not extinct, look!" Instructions from gu mu, then vice premier of the State Council. In September 1978, entrusted by the State Council, the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was appointed to form an expert inspection team, which officially opened the prelude to the search for wild crested ibises in China.
After three years of fruitless Chinese searching, Japan was almost desperate to save the crested ibis.
In May 1981, Liu Yinzeng, an ornithologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, finally found seven wild crested ibises in Yaojiagou in Yang County, Shaanxi Province.
The news excited both countries. In October 1981, the two countries' intention to work together to save the crested ibis was established.
△ The crested ibises entering the breeding season in Hanzhong, Shaanxi (figure | Visual China)
<h1>The Japanese government is willing to spend money on crested ibises</h1>
In June 1985, China and Japan signed the Minutes of the Sino-Japanese Joint Conservation and Research Crested Ibis, and from this time on, the two countries began to cooperate in the joint protection of the crested ibis.
Ding Haihua, then director of the Yangxian National Crested Ibis Nature Reserve Management Bureau in Shaanxi Province, recalled that in the early 1980s, Japan gave a lot of assistance to China in rescuing and protecting crested ibises, especially the timely provision of equipment and financial assistance.
In 1981, after the discovery of crested ibises in Yangxian County, China's first professional crested ibis protection agency, the Qinling No. 1 Crested Ibis Group Protection Station, was established in Yaojiagou. Liu Yinzeng, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is recognized by the world as a crested ibis, recalled that 4 people, including him, lived in Yaojiagou and were responsible for nursing care, and lived for three years.
In order to keep them from interference and injury, Liu Yinzeng and others built observation sheds under each nest tree for 24-hour supervision. In order to prevent the natural enemies of the king snake, ferret family, weasels and other crested ibises from swallowing eggs and young chicks on the tree, Liu Yinzeng smeared butter on the trunk, security climbing blade holder, hanging umbrella-shaped snake cover at the same time, but also pay close attention to the snake sneak attack, human-snake war often occurs.
At that time, the Japan Environment Agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Japan Bird Conservation Alliance and other organizations donated conservation equipment and funds from telescopes to incubators through cooperation to help Yangxian build a crested ibis breeding and rescue center and build crested ibis food breeding facilities, which greatly alleviated the shortage of crested ibises protection funds and equipment shortages.
△ Yangxian Nature Reserve (Figure | Gao Yuefang, "Conservation Study of the Endangered Ibis")
In order to protect the crested ibis, the Japanese government and the private sector have given a lot of money. According to the People's Daily, since the Chinese government gave Japan a pair of crested ibises in 1998, Japan has provided China with government cooperation funds for the protection of crested ibises every year.
In December 2010, the "Regional Environment Construction for the Harmonious Coexistence of People and Crested Ibises" project jointly cooperated by China and Japan was launched in Xi'an. The project duration is from 2010 to 2015. During this period, the Japanese side promised to provide about 450 million yen (about 35 million yuan) of free funds to investigate and improve the natural and social environment of the project site.
<h1>Four times as a "friendly messenger" of the national ceremony</h1>
Like the giant panda, the crested ibises also played the role of "messengers of friendship" in the exchanges between China and Japan, counting this time, a total of one president and three prime ministers donated or provided crested ibises to Japan during their visits to Japan.
"Huahua", one of the seven crested ibises found in YangXian County, Shaanxi, was sent to Japan for a year of "blind date". Because the only remaining crested ibis in Japan was already dying of old age, the two could not breed successfully. Later, the Japanese Emperor visited China and once again held talks with the Chinese leader on the relevant matters of sending another crested ibis to "send an envoy" to Japan.
From 1985 to 1995, China sent crested ibises to Japan several times and "mated" with Japanese crested ibises, but they were unsuccessful. But Japan has not stopped trying to win back the crested ibis.
In 1998, then Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Japan, which was the first time a Chinese head of state set foot on Japanese soil, and a pair of crested ibises was a state gift from Jiang Zemin to Japan. It has been learned that a few days before Jiang Zemin's visit, the Japanese Government officially sent personnel to Beijing and put forward to China a request that a pair of male and female paired crested ibises be given away.
△ In November 1998, Mr. and Mrs. Jiang Zemin met with Emperor Akihito and his wife at the Imperial Palace of Japan
The pair were named "Friends" and "Yangyang". "Friendship" symbolizes the friendship between the Chinese and Japanese peoples, while "Yangyang" means that its hometown is YangXian County, Shaanxi Province, China. At the Japanese Imperial Palace, Jiang Zemin personally handed over a photograph of a pair of crested ibises to Emperor Akihito of Japan.
The following year, "Friends" and "Yangyang" were airlifted to Japan, and gave birth to a healthy and lively male crested ibis, named "Youyou", when it was born, Japan's major television stations were engaged in live broadcasting, and the liveliness was no less than the sensation caused by the appearance of giant panda Xiangxiang last year.
In October 2000, Zhu Rongji, then premier of the State Council, visited Japan and, at the request of Japan, brought a "crested ibis bride", the bride named "Meimei", which was a female partner for "Youyou".
After 2003, the Sino-Japanese crested ibis exchange was suspended due to avian influenza. Until 2007, wen Jiabao, then premier of the State Council, visited Japan and brought crested ibises "Huayang" and "overflowing water".
<h1>Send the crested ibises after 11 years</h1>
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and the crested ibises have once again become friendly messengers of the two countries, and the Chinese side has once again provided crested ibises to Japan after a gap of 11 years.
According to today's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, the population of Crested Ibises in China has now grown from 7 in 1981 to more than 3,000, and wild populations have been rebuilt in Shaanxi, Zhejiang, Henan and other places through measures such as releasing them into nature.
The population of japanese crested ibises has reached about 500. Now, not only in the Sado Island Crested Ibis Forest Park in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, but also in the rice paddies of the countryside of Sado Island, if you are lucky, you can also see the beautiful figure of wild crested ibises.
Geng Shuang said that the win-win cooperation between China and Japan in the protection of the crested ibises has become a successful example in the history of wildlife protection in the world.
This time, the Chinese side once again provided two crested ibises to the Japanese side for cooperative breeding and breeding research between the two countries, which is not only conducive to continuing to improve the genetic diversity of the Japanese crested ibis population, but also further enhances the friendly feelings of the two peoples.
△ Emperor Akihito and his wife personally went to the hotel to bid farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Hu Jintao
10 years ago, on the day that then President Hu Jintao visited Japan and left Tokyo for the Kansai region of Japan, the Japanese emperor and his wife personally bid farewell to the hotel, and the emperor and Hu Jintao talked about the crested ibis: "I am very relieved to see that the number of crested ibises is gradually increasing. ”
The Emperor also said, "I sincerely hope that the relations between Japan and China will flourish." Hu Jintao agreed with this.
Information | Xinhua News Agency, Beijing Youth Daily, People's Daily, Shaanxi Daily, Oriental Morning Post
Proofreading | Li Zhe