Peninsula all-media reporter Zhao Yongbao Zhang Changwei
After the Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger and the Hangzhou Golden Leopard, there is also a kind of animal in Qingdao, that is, our sea neighbor - "National Grade II Protected Animal" East Asian Porpoise. Of course, our finless porpoises do not run into trouble, but accompany us in the sea and bring us happiness. 22 May is the International Day for Biological Diversity, established by the United Nations General Assembly. How do East Asian finless porpoises live in the ocean, have you heard their stories? Let's take a look.
The finless porpoise has been witnessed more than a dozen times this year
In Qingdao, many people see sea mammals, the big one is called whale, and the small one is called dolphin. There is a kind of "dolphin", fishermen call them "river pigs" or "sea pigs", in Rizhao also known as "pig fish", they are "East Asian porpoises".
Recently, Mr. Yan, a citizen of Qingdao, accidentally photographed a picture of a "big fish" parade at the Olympic Sailing Center. It moves up and down in the water, lively and cute, graceful and smooth swimming posture has attracted many citizens to watch. "This is an East Asian porpoise, a kind of finless porpoise that lives in the sea," said Li Zhenzhen, project director of the Blue Ribbon Marine Conservation Association, adding that east Asian finless porpoises generally do not appear in areas with dense human activities, and occasionally appear on the shore, usually because of bait, chasing fish to the shore.
On April 19, citizens found a porpoise in the waters of the Olympic Sailing Center.
Hundreds of rivers east to the sea, life is connected. Speaking of the Yangtze River porpoise, everyone knows that it is a national first-class protected animal, a "smiling angel", and the East Asian porpoise is its brother in the sea, an ancient and rare species.
"In addition to the Olympic Sailing Center, in Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay, Zhanqiao, Taiping Cape and other seas, there have been East Asian porpoises." Li Zhenzhen told the peninsula all-media reporter that near the town of Langya on the west coast of Motian Hengdao is the sea where East Asian porpoises are often infested. According to statistics, this year, the East Asian porpoise has been seen more than a dozen times off the coast of Qingdao.
Porpoise figure in the sea area of the Olympic Sailing Center (video screenshot)
Two gray-and-white finless porpoises off Daqin Island (video screenshot).
Liu Shujie, 50, is a fisherman, and he is not an ordinary fisherman. Over the years, Liu Shujie has been committed to the protection of marine ecology and is now one of the first batch of "certified" seahorse conservation instructors trained in China by the IUCN Hailongke. This year, he has recorded as many as six sightings of East Asian finless porpoises.
In the southern part of the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, the dongying bird watching association, a public welfare organization, has been able to find finless porpoises almost every month since it began monitoring in February this year. Even if it speaks loudly, the porpoise is not afraid and continues to enter and exit the water leisurely.
This year, finless porpoises have been spotted almost every month in the waters of the Yellow River Delta.
Finless porpoises are easier to see on rainy days
The Yangtze River finless porpoise prefers to live in fresh water, while the East Asian finless porpoise regards the vast areas of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea as their "happy hometown". Sometimes, east Asian porpoises are lively and active, chasing fishing boats or their prey to the coast and "intimate contact" with humans.
"Compared with dolphins, finless porpoises are not so active, but they can also jump more than 1 meter high above the water, and due to their small size, they appear to be more rapid when they breathe on the surface of the river, like jumping, and they can see splashing water and can hear the sound of breathing." Li Zhenzhen introduced to reporters that pairs of accompanying porpoises sometimes show up on the surface of the water to breathe, sometimes staggered. After being frightened, the dive speeds up and changes direction underwater.
In April this year, Yantai Daqin Island witnessed a gray-white porpoise.
So, under what weather conditions, the probability of seeing a finless porpoise is higher?
Yantai Daqin Island witnessed a gray-white porpoise (video screenshot).
According to fishermen's observations, with weather changes, such as before the wind, before the rain, before the weather becomes cold, the finless porpoise will frequently jump out of the water. After the fishermen saw it, they knew that it was going to change the sky, and they should not go out to sea to fish again, so as to avoid accidents. Experts also pointed out that finless porpoises need to jump out of the water to breathe, in the event of rain or wind and other weather, their breathing rate will be accelerated, this is because the weather changes make the air pressure decrease, the porpoise has to increase the breathing rate to obtain more oxygen.
Therefore, the finless porpoise will jump out of the water more frequently on rainy days to breathe, of course, it is easier to see the finless porpoise on rainy days.
Fishermen by mistake are the main threat
Appearing in the offshore sea, for humans, can be in close contact with the "smiling angel", but for the porpoise, it is not a good thing.
On May 3 this year, Coach Liu of the Silver Sea Yacht Club drove a sailboat and found a dead finless porpoise floating on the surface of the sea in the waters near the Olympic Sailing Center, which was about 1 meter long and weighed about 30 pounds. On May 4, Ms. Chang, who was walking by the sea in the morning, found a porpoise carcass on the beach at Yangkou Green Rock Beach in Laoshan District.
In May, two finless porpoises were found off the coast of Qingdao, but they were both dead when they were found.
Li Zhenzhen, project director of the Blue Ribbon Marine Conservation Association, said that relevant survey data show that at least 500 to 1,000 East Asian finless porpoises die every year along the coast of Shandong. The East Asian finless porpoise is listed as endangered in the species list and was listed as a national second-level aquatic wild protected animal on January 4, 2021 with the approval of the State Council.
On April 12, an East Asian finless porpoise was spotted in the waters off the west coast of Langya.
"Along the coast of our country, the finless porpoise is a hegemonic existence, at the top of the food chain, sharks, whales and other large marine animals encounter it and avoid it. Because of its hard beak, when threatened, it attacks the abdomen of its enemies with its beak, killing them fatally. Liu Shujie told the Peninsula All Media reporter that the main threat encountered by east Asian finless porpoises is bycatch from human misatting, especially fishermen's double trawls, drift gillnets, custom nets and other nets. After the porpoise mistakenly enters the net, it cannot come to the surface of the water to breathe, and it will suffocate. In addition, the porpoise is particularly maternal, if its cubs are caught by mistake or killed, its mother and father go to sacrifice together, and the whole family is ruined.
On April 17, a dead finless porpoise was found on a beach near Langya on the west coast.
CCTV News mentioned in a 2018 report that figures show that the population of finless porpoises in the Yellow Bohai Sea is less than 20% of the early 1980s, and some waters are even less than 5%. Because of its low economic value, the illegal trade in finless porpoises is rare, but bycatch is a frequent occurrence, with 291 reports of stranded and mis-caught finless porpoises from 1988 to 2018, and 301 by mistake.
In recent years, the population of finless porpoises has increased
From 12:00 on May 1 to 12:00 on September 1, Qingdao Entered the 2021 Fishing Season Closure Period. Wu Qiang, an associate researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, has been committed to the investigation and research of fishery resources in the Yellow Bohai Sea for more than 10 years, according to the results of the yellow sea institute in recent years, the biomass density of fishery resources in the Bohai Sea at the end of the Period of Fuxiu increased by 3 to 7 times compared with the initial stage of Fuxiu, and the biomass density of fishery resources in the Yellow Sea increased by 2-5 times. The fishing moratorium not only protects the fishery resources of the entire Yellow Bohai Sea, but also enables the East Asian finless porpoise at the top of the food chain to have sufficient food supplies.
Data from the Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment show that during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the two binding indicators of excellent water bodies and inferior V-class water bodies issued by the state and provinces to Qingdao Were exceeded, and the proportion of excellent water quality in coastal waters reached 98.8%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points over 2015. The improvement of water quality has also provided an excellent living environment for the East Asian finless porpoise.
Blue Ribbon Marine Conservation Association volunteers survey fishermen on Tayoko Island about the appearance of Porpoises in East Asia.
In May 2018, the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute launched the first Yellow Bohai Porpoise population survey in Qingdao. For the first time, the population of porpoises in the Bohai Sea was initially assessed between 3124 and 7883 heads; it was basically found that the adjacent sea areas of the Yellow River estuary, the sea areas of Long Island, the surrounding waters of Dalian, Qingdao Laoshan Bay and Aoshan Bay were important distribution areas of porpoises; it was found that in recent years, the population of porpoises in the Yellow Bohai Sea had increased, and large groups of more than 20 heads were often observed; and the phenomenon of killer whales and sea lions in the waters of Long Island was also investigated many times.
In 2020, the Blue Ribbon Marine Conservation Association launched the "East Asian Porpoise GuardianShip Plan" to conduct research, evaluation and conservation actions for the shandong coastal finless porpoise, and is committed to forming a scientific conservation strategy and establishing a finless porpoise guardian network.
Volunteers conduct research at Jimi Cliff in the West Coast New Area.
For example, in Langya Town, a new area on the west coast, volunteers learned that when local fishermen go out to sea to fish, they will generally find the figure of East Asian porpoises 3 to 5 nautical miles from the coastline, and the probability of encountering a group of East Asian porpoises in the bay southwest of Lingshan Island is relatively high, and the individuals of East Asian porpoises will be different in different seasons. Old fishermen on Lingshan Island have observed that the gray-black East Asian finless porpoise is mostly active in groups, while the white-bodied East Asian finless porpoise often acts alone. The volunteers also worked with local NGOs and fishermen to discuss the feasibility of improving fishing gear, hoping to leave an extra way for East Asian finless porpoises who mistakenly broke into fishing nets.
How should ordinary citizens rescue porpoises when they encounter them?
In recent years, porpoise strandings have occurred from time to time, and the public has become more proactive in bailing them out. But experts advise that if there is no professional knowledge, try not to get close, or even touch.
Dr. Lin Wenzhi of the Institute of Deep-sea Sciences and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told reporters that at this stage, the public often helps the whales and dolphins to return to the sea after finding that the whales and dolphins have run aground; but the correct approach is to judge the health of the stranded whales and dolphins first. Some cetaceans may be too weak to maintain balance, and if they are pushed directly back to the sea, it will increase their pain. And these are not something that the general public can do, so once the general public encounters a similar situation, the best way is to call the fishery administration or relevant departments in time, provide information under the guidance of professionals, and help professionals make judgments about their species and health; before waiting for the arrival of professional rescue personnel, do not watch stranded whales and dolphins, reduce their anxiety and uneasiness.
For example, when the public rescues stranded whales and dolphins, they will dump seawater around their bodies, hoping to create a small environment suitable for the survival of whales and dolphins. However, such a practice can easily lead to the intake of water into the breathing holes of the cetacean, which will lead to suffocation. The right thing to do is to cover the body parts of the body outside the breathing holes of the whale and dolphin, which is soaked in the seawater.
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From ordinary fishermen to "Blue Bay Defenders"
On May 20, when Liu Shujie was first contacted by a peninsula reporter, he was attending the 4th World Sea Dragon Biology Congress in Guangzhou. Liu Shujie, 50, dressed in a formal suit and wearing a pair of Sven glasses, skillfully discussed and communicated with the experts and scholars next to him. You wouldn't have thought that just five or six years ago, Liu Shujie was an ordinary fisherman in Langya Town, a new area on the West Coast.
Liu Shujie participated in the 4th World Sea Dragon Biology Conference in Guangzhou.
The nursery technician turned around and became a fisherman
At the age of 18, only Liu Shujie, who had just Chinese, entered the county nursery as a technician. According to this life trajectory, Liu Shujie may now be a professional seedling technical consultant.
"But at the time, in the nursery, there was only a fixed salary of 37.5 yuan per month. If you catch overtime, you can get up to 40 or 50 yuan. Liu Shujie told reporters that at that time, the economic benefits of going out to sea to fish were relatively higher, and the annual income was almost 40,000 or 50,000 yuan.
Liu Shujie, 20, left the nursery where he had worked for two years, left the envied position of nursery technician, and became an ordinary fisherman who followed his father to fish, embarking on the same path of "relying on the sea to eat the sea" like his ancestors.
Liu Shujie found a porpoise that had been mistakenly captured.
At that time, there was no fishing moratorium, except for the cold and bitter winter, Liu Shujie sailed to the vast sea again and again; and the sea with rich fishery resources also returned with fruitful results. "The best time was in the late 1990s, when the sun was about to go to sea, from lighting firewood to boiling a pot of hot water, it took almost an hour to catch more than 2,000 pounds of mackerel with a lenseller net."
By 2000, Liu Shujie, who had become the captain of the ship, had changed to a large 20-horsepower fishing boat, and the fishing net was replaced by a single tow. But when a net is thrown out, only sixty or seventy pounds of miscellaneous fish can be caught. Then in 2005, Liu Shujie observed that the rate of decay of fishery resources was rising rapidly.
In just a few years, the catch has been greatly reduced, bringing Liu Shujie not only worries about future life, but also thinking about the decline of fishery resources year after year. In Liu Shujie's view, changes in the marine environment and overfishing of fisheries may be key factors in the reduction of catches.
The idea of protecting the ocean and protecting fishery resources without exhaustion took root in Liu Shujie's heart.
"Good Partner" for Marine Scientific Research
In 2000, by chance, Liu Shujie met zhao xianyong and Jin Xianshi of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, and assisted in the investigation of golden anchovy resources. Professor Zhang Xiumei, the former Ocean University of China, also invited him to come to Haida University to study with his brothers and brothers.
Liu Shujie, who likes to learn and is good at thinking, followed various experts and scholars to continuously learn and absorb more fishery knowledge, and grew into the most professional knowledge and ability of fishermen and captains in the local area.
Liu Shujie, who likes to learn, has slowly grown into a "good partner" for marine scientific research.
In the summer of 2015, Zhang Xiong, a teacher from the University of British Columbia, met Liu Shujie while doing a survey on coastal hippocampal conservation in China and learned that there are many seahorses offshore langya town.
"From the perspective of the marine environment, the seahorse is an environmental indicator species, and if there are a large number of seahorses in an area, it means that the sea is a healthy environment." Liu Shujie told reporters, seahorse, we have ah in the sea area of Langya Town!
In 2017, experts from the IUCN Hailong family, because of Liu Shujie's observations, with incredible amazement, came to the coastal waters of Langya Town, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, and in just 10 minutes of bottom trawl survey operations, they caught and found more than 130 Japanese seahorses, and could not help but give a thumbs up for the rich Japanese seahorse resources here.
In 2017, Mr. Zhang Xiong, a member of the IUCN Hailongke Expert Group, planned to hold a training camp for Chinese seahorse patrol captains and conservation instructors in order to implement the protection of China's seahorse, and invited Liu Shujie to participate in the first time.
In just four days, after rigorous and conscientious study and assessment, Liu Shujie stood out from the 15 members and successfully obtained the certificates of "China Seahorse Conservation Lecturer" and "China Seahorse Conservation Patrol Captain" awarded by Professor Zhang Xiong on behalf of the IUCN Hailongke Expert Group. Liu Shujie is also in addition to the status of a fisherman, with one more responsibility. The "Qingdao Station of China Seahorse Conservation Network" was also born.
Unapologetic "Blue Bay Defenders"
As a fisherman, coupled with some scientific research projects and some unique perspectives, Liu Shujie found that the desertification at sea is becoming more and more serious, pollution and indiscriminate fishing, which makes Liu Shujie feel very sad.
Since the winter of 2017, Liu Shujie has embarked on his journey of seahorse conservation. Although there is no financial support, Liu Shujie surveyed and measured the number of seahorses offshore in Langya Town according to the requirements, and carried out seahorse conservation training and publicity.
At first, only 12 fishermen volunteers were willing to join liu shujie in seahorse conservation patrols. Under the guidance and training of Liu Shujie, more and more fishermen volunteers have joined the seahorse protection network. Along the way to protect the seahorse, Liu Shujie has also been recognized by the relevant local leaders, and in 2019, Liu Shujie registered and established a public welfare unit "Blue Bay Ecological Environment Public Welfare Service Center" to carry out the protection of the seahorse more standardly.
Before that, because there was no way to apply for public welfare project support, the team did not have any source of expenses, and all the places that needed to spend money were donated by the team, you 300, I 500, he 1000... Liu Shujie said that the current funding is through the completion of the team registration, applied for a public welfare project of the Beijing Entrepreneurs Federation "Alxa SEE Ecological Association", and applied for 80,000 yuan of public welfare funds last year. Through the support of funds, some systems and personnel training have been improved, so that public welfare organizations have gradually embarked on the road of standardization, regularization and institutionalization. This year, the Blue Bay Ecological Environment Public Welfare Service Center has applied for a funding fund for the second phase of the Shandong Binhai Project, and the project is under approval, and it is easy to carry out the public welfare project with the funds.
Liu Shujie's team of fishermen conducts daily patrols.
Liu Shujie said that the Blue Bay Ecological Environment Public Welfare Service Center, as a non-governmental organization, has developed very well in recent years, and there are many public welfare funds that can be applied, but Liu Shujie does not want to apply again, and he feels that it is not good to apply more.
In 2020, the full membership of the "Blue Bay Defenders" composed of fishermen has exceeded 70 people. On a daily basis, we will not only carry out seahorse patrols, but also organize a series of public welfare activities that help protect marine ecology, such as clear beaches and clear bays.
Since last year, the promotion and protection of East Asian finless porpoises has also become an important task for them. Since the beginning of this year, Liu Shujie and his team have begun to record porpoise sightings during research or fishing. Since the beginning of this year, they have recorded six porpoise sightings on the West Coast. On December 15, 2020, a male East Asian finless porpoise that died of drowning due to mistakenly entering the "altar net" was found when fishermen Lao Hai (pseudonym) collected fishing nets, and was an adult finless porpoise with a body length of 1.5 meters. The Blue Bay Guardian team immediately provided this information to the Blue Ribbon Marine Conservation Association, which was eventually transported by the institute for scientific research.
On December 15, 2020, an East Asian finless porpoise drowned in the "altar subnet".
Liu Shujie said that as a fire, the "Blue Bay Ecological Environment Public Welfare Service Center" should drive fishermen in Qingdao, Shandong and even the whole country to participate in marine conservation and make their own contributions to the ideal state of stable water and fish abundance.
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Hello, my name is Finless Porpoise, a finless porpoise that lives in the sea!
Short mouth, round head, bulging forehead has a small hole in the spray of water, every time the water surface is windy, I will jump out, squint my small eyes, like prostrating my head to the wind to worship, worship and dive, dive and rise, the literati gave me the elegant name of "chasing the wind".
My name is "Finless Porpoise", one of the most petite whales, and today's protagonist is one of the "East Asian Finless Porpoises", which can be regarded as a close relative of the Yangtze River Finless Porpoise.
Because I don't have a dorsal fin and my body is bloated and round, it seems that it is not too much for me to be called a "river pig" by fishermen, so chasing the wind is sometimes called "river pig worshiping the wind".
I like to live in shallow nearshore waters and brackish water confluence, coastal, estuarine and river dolphins, distributed in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Tropical, Subtropical and Temperate Coastal Waters of Asia, bounded by the southern Taiwan Strait, living in the East China Sea north of the Taiwan Strait, the Yellow Bohai Sea and the northern waters of South Korea and Japan are East Asian porpoises, while the Southern Indo-Pacific Finless Porpoise and the Yangtze River Finless Porpoise in the Yangtze River Freshwater are relatives of our genus.
Our life expectancy is about 23 years, don't look at my wide mouth slightly cocked to both ends, always smiling, but the upper and lower jaws are densely lined with about 70 short shovel-shaped teeth, such as blue scales, barracuda, small yellow fish, these shallow sea fish, are my favorite.