(Published in Hunan Daily, September 16, 20th edition)
The Changde Stone Gate Ju bottle mountain in the Mid-Autumn Festival is golden in the wilderness. The fallen leaves crumbling under the feet, the sound of the distant mountain streams and water babbling, the gentle sound of birds in the depths of the mountains and forests... The autumn music played by nature tickled Kang Zujie's heart. He put down the plan he was preparing for the rewilding of the South China Tigers, looked out the window, and his mind was full of grass and trees, insects and birds of The Kettle Mountain.
"If it wasn't for the second degree injury to the meniscus of my right knee and the inability to climb the rocks, I would have been bird watching at Kettle Mountain. In nature, people and birds rely on each other, and the fun is endless. Speaking of the flora and fauna of Huju Mountain, Kang Zujie was radiant.
Kang Zujie, 52 years old this year, is a senior engineer at the Hunan Hujushan National Nature Reserve Management Bureau. In the past 30 years, he has traveled to the 66,000 hectares of mountain forests of Hu bottle mountain, climbed the main peak of hu bottle mountain more than 150 times, accompanied by birds, and discovered dozens of new record species of animals and plants in Hunan Province, known as the "encyclopedia of animals and plants" of Hu Bottle Mountain.
On February 20, 2011, Kang Zujie photographed a female bird with a blue-throated fairy bird in the Shenjing Cave of Huju Mountain. Photo by the correspondent
In 13 years, 373 species of birds were monitored and recorded, and the stunt of "listening to and distinguishing birds" was practiced
Kang Zujie is a native of The Bottle Mountain. At the age of 22, he went to work at the former Jiangpinghe Township Forestry Station, and like everyone else, he only knew "trees are trees, fish are fish, and birds are divided into crows and sparrows."
In 2008, by chance, he embarked on the path of bird watching. Since then, he has carried 10 kilograms of bird watching equipment through the mountains and forests, taken more than 200,000 bird photos, recorded more than 20,000 birdsong, and repeatedly listened to the sounds, practicing the "listening to the sound of birds" stunt.
The ancient trees and dense forests in the reserve are difficult to find birds, and they often only hear their voices and do not see them. Kang Zujie often traveled forward at the waist of the cat, heard the birdsong, recorded its sound first, and then watched its behavior. As soon as the bird appears, take a picture immediately. He didn't wait for the birds, and when he went back, he listened to the recordings and learned the birdsong repeatedly. When he went up the mountain again, he learned to call birds and lured them out. The most difficult to see is the gray and blue Ji Grebe, and the playback of the chirp recording does not come out, and Kang Zujie squatted on the mountain dozens of times before he photographed it.
13 years of bird watching, Kang Zujie is like an "ascetic monk". "Bird monitoring uses the variable distance sampling line method, and 15 sample lines are set up on Huju Mountain, and each monitoring is completed in the same month." Kang Zujie introduced that he stayed in the deep mountains and dense forests for a week, and he often relied on instant noodles and biscuits for three meals a day to fill his hunger. Once, he went up the mountain to monitor, forgot to carry dry food, his stomach was really hungry, so he turned out a moldy cake from his backpack, broke off the mold, and half of his colleagues. In the winter of 2019, the monitoring caught up with heavy snowfall, and the snow on The Bottle Mountain was as thick as 40 cm. There was no road, so he carefully probed step by step, climbing with a rolling belt as he descended the mountain.
"Going up the mountain looks bitter, but it's actually a kind of enjoyment." As long as you have nature in mind and respect animals, you can understand animals, and animals can read your feelings. Kang Zujie said.
"For example, birds, the same kind of bird makes different sounds, representing different meanings. Some calls represent chirping, some represent alarms, and some call to companions. I learned a few bird calls and the bird came, which was very happy. Speaking of Xingtou, Kang Zujie imitated the bird call. In the office, a "goo-goo-goo" came the "bead-necked dove"; a moment of "da-da-da-da", and the "ordinary nighthawk" made a cry like a telegram.
Kang Zujie has a special love for birds. In the past 13 years, he has monitored and recorded 373 species of birds, found 22 new record species of Hunan birds such as gray and blue cockroach and long-tailed mountain pepperbird, published 1 bird monograph, published 9 scientific research papers, and won awards in national bird watching competitions for many times.
In 2015, Kang Zujie carried out bird monitoring on the banks of the Lishui River in Shimen County. Photo by the correspondent
More than 40 streams and rivers were swept across and 3 new record species of Hunan fish species were found
In addition to birds, Kang Zujie has also made great achievements in the study of fish, discovering a new species of fish, "bottle catfish", which is very rare in the field of vertebrates.
He found three new record species of Hunan fish, namely eeltail, Sichuan reptile loach and grey schizothia, and two new record species of snakes in Hunan Province, namely the double white ring snake and the neck snake, which enriched the species gene pool of Hujia Mountain and were of great value to zoogeography and animal ecology.
Kang Zujie embarked on the road of animal and plant research, stemming from his curiosity about the Bottle Mountain.
Hujia Mountain is one of the 200 key ecological areas in the world, and is a "green treasure house with thousands of gold" in the eyes of biological experts, attracting many experts and scholars to visit every year. Once, Wei Laicai, a professor at the Central South Forestry College (the predecessor of the Central South University of Forestry and Technology), visited Huju Mountain and talked about the rare animals and plants here. Kang Zujie, who accompanied the inspection, was deeply touched: "The Huju Mountain, where I live every day, is such a magical place, I want to know and discover it!" ”
At the end of the 1990s, in order to explore the Hu bottle mountain, Kang Zujie was admitted to the Central South Forestry College to study for a master's degree, and every day he got up early and went dark to plunge into zoology research. When I graduated, I only had a high Chinese and could not get a degree. After taking the undergraduate examination, he entered the Central South Forestry College to pursue a master's degree. Master's thesis, Kang Zujie chose the unpopular topic - mountain stream fish research. He paid for no research; he borrowed from his teachers without a microscope; he used an office without a laboratory. In the past two years, Kang Zujie has traveled all over Hujiashan mountain and more than 40 surrounding streams and rivers, and has clearly explored the fish species and distribution, and written a paper "Fish diversity and spatio-temporal distribution pattern of Hujushan National Nature Reserve", which has been affirmed by judges and experts.
In 2007, kang Zujie was collecting summer fish specimens when he found a fish that had never been seen before. He happened to meet an expert in the study of fish of the genus Ingula, Professor Zhou Wei of Southwest Forestry University, and sent him pictures of fish specimens for identification. What made Kang Zujie overjoyed was that Zhou Wei was very interested in this "baby": "This is a fish of the genus Catfish, it should be a new species, you send the specimen as soon as possible, I will give you a good look!" ”
Kang Zujie took the specimen and went south to Kunming. Through morphological comparative analysis, it was preliminarily determined that it was a new species of bass fish. In the following seven years, Hujiashan National Nature Reserve cooperated with the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to continuously monitor the changes of species population, diet, environmental factors, etc., and carried out morphological measurement and molecular sequencing analysis. In order to study the kinship, Kang Zujie went north to the Baishui River and west into the Jialing River and Bailongjiang River, collected specimens of the same genus, and found that the species was significantly different from the Chinese bass, the anterior gluteal, the Strong-body bass and the Sichuan catfish living in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River in terms of the structure of the maxillary tooth belt, the height of the tail stalk, and the genetic distance. Eventually, the paper on the new species was published in the journal ZOOTAXA, a taxonomic journal, named "Pot-and-bottle bass" according to the principle of nomenclature of the place of discovery.
In the animal specimen room, the reporter saw that the bottle of mountain bass specimen resembled a baby fish larvae. Kang Zujie told reporters: "This kind of bass generally lives in the upper reaches of mountains and streams with large gravel, clear water flow and high dissolved oxygen on the riverbed, and it is found in the Hujia Mountain in the Dongting Lake basin in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which may be caused by long-term isolation of geographical differentiation." The discovery of this species is of great significance to fill the missing link in the long chain of the evolution of the world's catfish in the family Catfish. ”
More than 150 times to the summit of the main peak of The Bottle Mountain, the most hope is that the South China tiger will be released as soon as possible
For 30 years, Kang Zujie has shuttled between mountains and rivers, taking pleasure in fish and birds, accompanied by golden eagles, black bears, wild boars, and forest musk. Under his leadership, the scientific research and monitoring team of Hujiashan National Nature Reserve has achieved fruitful results, and the number of vertebrates monitored has increased from 345 in 2004 to 613 species, and the number of vascular plants has increased from 2836 to 3080.
In the eyes of colleague Chen Zhenfa, Kang Zujie is a desperate sanlang. "There is a snake valley in Huju Mountain, and at the peak of snake breeding, there are snakes everywhere, and there is a serious miasma. In the past, as soon as people entered the valley, most of them had no return, which was called 'Death Valley' by the locals. He did not believe in evil, and together with more than 10 colleagues, signed a 'volunteer letter' and went to snake valley to investigate and sample. They swung the rattan over the cliff, collected more than 2300 specimens, found a new plant species 'Pot Bottle Mountain Tang Pine Grass', and found the bottom of the plant. Chen Zhenfa said that Kang Zujie had made The Bottle Mountain his home.
In the past 30 years, Kang Zujie has climbed the main peak of Huju Mountain more than 150 times. After climbing the mountain for a long time, he practiced "Scud" and "can run two times a day up the mountain". The mountain climbs a lot, and the body also falls ill. Some time ago, Kang Zujie's right knee meniscus was injured twice, and it was difficult to walk, let alone climb the mountain. "The pain can be endured, but the unbearable thing is that I can no longer climb the main peak of the Bottle Mountain." Speaking of this, Kang Zujie was devastated.
In addition to exploring species, Kang Zujie advocates the protection of wildlife from the source. "Green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains." With the beautiful nature, the Hu bottle mountain cultural tourism town has room for development. Kang Zujie said that they infiltrated the publicity of wildlife protection into communities and schools, organized bird watching activities, environmental protection knowledge competitions, and scientific rescue of wild animals. In 2019, he won the National Outstanding Contribution Award for Ecological Construction.
"Deeper protection lies in the restoration of species and the more complete ecological chain and ecosystem." Kang Zujie told reporters. The WWF South China Tiger Expedition Group believes that Hujia Mountain is one of the only two South China tiger habitats with suitable area in China. The state forestry and grassland department has also identified three protected areas, such as Hunan Huju Mountain and Hubei Houhe, as candidate sites for the South China Tiger Re-introduction Project. At present, the Forestry Bureau of Hunan Province has set up 6 expert research groups to carry out systematic research on tiger breeding, prey restoration, and habitat transformation in South China. Kang Zujie, leading the scientific research team of the reserve, is making preliminary preparations for the implementation of the South China Tiger Rewilding Experiment.
"Now, the restoration of wild boar, hairy crested deer and other animal populations in the Hujiashan National Nature Reserve has provided food for the wild release of tigers in South China." My biggest wish is to get the South China Tiger back to nature before I retire! Kang Zujie said.
Source: Hunan Daily
Author: Jiang Hongli
First Instance: Hao Danning
Second instance: Zhang Yang
Final Judge: Peng Meijun