The yellow-breasted bunting (wú), also known as the grass finches, (scientific name: Emberiza aureola) is a small songbird, with a body length of 14-15 cm, is a very widely distributed small migratory bird, in the past observation records, they cross the Eurasian continent, and are also very many in China.
Ten years ago, the yellow-breasted bunting was so numerous that it could be described as a wild mountain, and this small bird was very fertile, and each nest could produce four or five young birds, and people never thought that such a bird would have any accidents.
The yellow-breasted bunting, which was once widely distributed throughout the world
But reality is always beyond people's imagination, and the yellow-breasted bunting, once everywhere in Eurasia, has almost disappeared in the last decade, and many places can no longer even see it.
Many wild animals are endangered and extinct, often because of human activities that cause the destruction of their habitats. The yellow-breasted bunting, however, is not.
In northern China, the yellow-breasted bunting male bird is a popular pet bird with its beautiful shape and pleasant sound.
In southern China, it is said that the yellow-breasted bunting has a tonic and strong effect, in Guangdong folk, people will derive the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, falsely advertising that eating soup made with yellow-breasted bunting as the main raw material can supplement kidney aphrodisiac. In 2001 alone, Guangdong estimated to have killed more than 1 million yellow-breasted buntings.
This theory spread widely with Cantonese cuisine and Cantonese food culture, and because the yellow-breasted bunting failed to achieve artificial breeding, it was all caught in the wild. This food culture brought ruin to the yellow-breasted bunting and caused a significant decline in the population of the wild yellow-breasted bunting.
In 2017, the yellow-breasted bunting was listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species ver 3.1 – critically endangered, meaning that their wild populations are at a very high risk of imminent extinction.
The encounter with the yellow-breasted bunting reminds us of another famous bird, the passenger pigeon.
As early as two or three hundred years ago, there was a very common bird in North America, the passenger pigeon, which traveled in groups between Mexico and the Rocky Mountains during the annual migration season.
Passenger pigeons are arguably a very successful species in North America, with such a large number that a flock of hundreds of millions of pigeons can be found in a single pigeon colony, and the migration is shaded by the sun.
When Europeans first set foot on the North American continent, there were about 5 billion passenger pigeons, compared with only 1 billion humans worldwide at the time.
However, with the arrival of European immigrants, the tragic fate of the passenger pigeon began, and in just one century, the passenger pigeon became endangered from 5 billion to the brink of extinction, and eventually disappeared from the planet forever, becoming the most famous representative of the modern extinct birds.
Passenger pigeons
After European immigrants arrived on the American continent, they found that the passenger pigeon was a large, easy to kill, and delicious birds, and with the outbreak of the North American population, the passenger pigeon began to be hunted in large numbers, and the population declined rapidly.
European colonists are hunting passenger pigeons
In 1897, it was realized that the passenger pigeon was on the verge of extinction and began to legislate to protect the passenger pigeon, but it was too late.
On March 22, 1900, the last wild passenger pigeon on the planet died under the air gun of a boy in Pike County, Ohio.
On September 1, 1914, the last captive passenger pigeon, Martha, died in Cincinnati Park, USA.
Martha's specimen
At this point, this species, which was once several times larger than humans, originally had no risk of extinction, and because of human greed and selfishness, it disappeared from this planet forever.
Today, there are only a few tens of thousands of yellow-breasted buntings left worldwide, and China's hunting of yellow-breasted buntings is still rampant, and the remaining tens of thousands of yellow-breasted buntings will soon be reduced to a very low number.
If the yellow-breasted bunting is not to be wanted to repeat the mistakes of the passenger pigeon, it is necessary to increase protection, strengthen supervision, crack down on illegal hunting, and prohibit illegal trade.
In order to make efforts to protect the yellow-breasted bunting more effective, the Chinese government should expedite the updating of the National List of Protected Species, which has not been updated for nearly 30 years and the yellow-breasted bunting in the list is only classified as a Third Class Protected Animal, rather than the First Class Protection Level that should be achieved today.
Beginning in December 2019, there was an outbreak of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus infection in Wuhan, which has now caused more than 30,000 infections and more than 600 deaths across the country, and this new coronavirus has been confirmed to come from wild animal bats and spread to humans through the wildlife trade in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.
On February 6, the latest research from South China Agricultural University showed that pangolins are potential intermediate hosts for the novel coronavirus, and like the grass finches, pangolins are widely hunted in Asia for food and traditional Chinese medicinal materials. Today, pangolins are also listed on the IUCN's 2014 Red List of Threatened Species ver 3.1 – CriticalLy Endangered (CR), a line away from extinction. Details: With a 99% similarity rate of virus strains, South China Agricultural University found that pangolins are potential intermediate hosts for the new coronavirus
China should also do a better job of publicizing the importance of wildlife conservation and helping the public understand that the killing and consumption of wild animals not only has no effect, but also leads to the extinction of species, and may lead to the extinction of human beings themselves.