The weather warmed up and my pet baby Brazilian turtle woke up from hibernation. I wanted to Baidu how to feed the baby turtles that had been "on hunger strike" for several months, but at this time, I unconsciously thought of the scene of catching turtles with earthworms in the small river near the village when I was a child... That's a lot more fun than feeding this little Brazilian turtle. So I "Baidu" the "chickpea turtle" I was fishing at that time, and I was surprised to find that it is now a "first-class protected animal"! It shocked me.
More than 30 years have passed, and the ordinary turtle that was once just a river has become a "first-class protected animal". Are wild "chickpeas" so rare now? Has the natural ecological environment been so badly damaged?
Out of curiosity, I took some of the animals I saw as a child on Baidu and found that most of them had been upgraded to the status of "protected animals".
- Shirun (Shi Scale): A national protected animal with important ecological, scientific and social values. This was the last thing I expected, because when I was a child, it was very common to shirun, and they seemed to us to be just big brown frogs, hiding mainly in the cracks of the rocks along the banks of the river, and sometimes when we walked by the river, they would suddenly jump out and jump into the distance. Because Shi Run is ugly, children don't play with them. On summer nights, they also join the "summer night animal and insect chorus" - chirp, croak, coo, boo... One after another, the layers are clear, and now in retrospect, what a beautiful "pure music" scene!
- Glue: Internationally endangered. I remember one time when I accompanied my mother to pick mushrooms in the wild, I saw an animal jumping into the trees from a distance, and I thought it was "sika deer!" My mom told me it was "deer." I didn't really see it that time, but when I had the opportunity to see it up close, it made me very unhappy - a few villagers caught a deer together, and I also squeezed into the crowd to watch, only to see a "deer" the size of an adult earth dog being thrown on the ground with its limbs tied, and it turned its head with a pair of black eyes to look around, revealing endless fear! I think it's pathetic. At that time, "deer" was not uncommon in the wild.
- Porcupine: Wild porcupine is a tertiary protected animal in mainland China, which is endangered and is not allowed to be hunted or eaten. Speaking of porcupines, I have to talk about wild boars first. I remember that there were many wild boars at that time, and in the middle of the night when people were sleeping, they came to the fields from time to time to steal crops, especially sweet potato fields, and they were arched and scattered, leaving large and small footprints in the field. The villagers tried all kinds of ways to deal with wild boars: someone planted a tall scarecrow in the field, someone set up a "water pole" on the edge of the paddy field to make a continuous thump to scare the wild boar, some made traps, and some people gave poison, but the effect was not very satisfactory, I remember that the village chief also specially asked hunters to hunt wild boars... On one occasion a porcupine fell into a trap for catching wild boars and was found dead. I also went to see the carcasses of porcupines covered with long spines, and from then on, I learned what porcupines looked like. I remember me and the other children were played with with a few white and black porcupine thorns. After several moves, the porcupine spines were lost somewhere.
- Owl: National second-class protected animal. Speaking of owls, the call of "coo, coo..." echoes in your ears. I remember walking outdoors in the evening, and I could often hear this call, and I could see owls standing in the treetops.
- Monkey-faced eagle: national second-class protection movement. One summer, a monkey-faced eagle fell into my vegetable garden, probably injured, and did not fly away when it saw people, but used murderous eyes to scare people approaching. I stood more than 2 meters away from the fence and looked at it, and it also turned to stare at me, and its strange face and burning eyes made me remember. Later, my father put it in a plastic bag and carried it to the mountains to release it, I don't know what happened to it.
- Pangolins: national level protected wildlife. When I was a child, I saw a pangolin that was caught by someone, it was covered with scales, and when someone touched it, it shrunk into a ball, which was very cute. At that time, pangolins were not listed as protected animals, and at that time, outsiders came to the village to collect pangolin nails, which were said to be used as medicine... Later, I heard that pangolins were listed as protected animals, and I was happy for them.
- Mandarin duck: a national second-class protected animal. Not far from our village, there is a wooden arch bridge twenty or thirty meters long. The bridge is a hundred or twenty meters away from the water under the bridge, and one summer, my parents and I passed the bridge and saw several beautiful water birds swimming on the river under the bridge. My dad told me it was a "Mandarin duck." When I grew up, I saw Mandarin ducks up close in the zoo, and their feathers were so beautiful!
- Monkeys: National protected animals. Once in the wild, I heard a strange call from a tree in the distance, and my mother said it was a group of monkeys, and told me that the cornfield at the foot of the mountain had been visited by monkeys, and a lot of corn was taken away, which made the owner of the cornfield very angry.
It is said that even the sparrow is now listed as endangered, and remembering that in the last century, it was one of the four pests. Alas!
At that time (eighties) the natural ecological environment of my area had not yet been destroyed, and farmers and wild animals still lived in a normal "food chain" harmonious life.
I think this situation has slowly begun to change since the nineties, when the famous saying "relying on the mountains and eating the mountains, relying on the water and the water" became popular, and the "shiitake mushrooms" began to be promoted in my area, and every household planted them. The substrate used to grow shiitake mushrooms is wood chips, so large areas of trees are cut down. Although afforestation was later requested, the difference was very large compared to the original forest. I don't know how long it will take to return to its original appearance. Also, even if the forest is restored, can the animals recover?
In addition, "game restaurants" were popular at that time, and I don't know how much game entered people's stomachs.
In addition to the destruction of forest cover and human over-predation, there may be other reasons that have made once-common animals endangered in just over three decades.
Now I understand how important it is for the state to "close mountains for afforestation, ban wild meat, and develop new energy..."
I sincerely hope that the "Animal and Plant Protection Law" can be publicized on a larger scale and in more depth, so that everyone knows the importance of protecting the ecological environment, so that wild animals and plants will not become history, and hope that our children and grandchildren will have as many animals and plants as neighbors as we do and coexist harmoniously in the world!