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Text: Vientiane hardcore
Edited by Vientiane hardcore
«——【Preamble】】 ——»
In January 2024, CCTV reported a news article saying that since early December 2023, nearly 10,000 yellow sheep have "secretly" crossed the border between China and Mongolia to Arshan in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
These cute-looking yellow sheep seem to like this place, pacing leisurely in groups and foraging in groups of three or five, Arshan looks like a natural zoo at this time.
The appearance of the yellow sheep made the local villagers and a group of experts and scholars very excited, and they stood in the distance of the yellow sheep herd to take pictures of this group of cute little creatures.
Sometimes some yellow sheep will come to the neighborhood where people live to "stroll", and people will also take a look from a distance and hurry away, for fear of disturbing them.
Bai Yuhua, a ranger who has worked in this place for 33 years, is also very happy, several years of work experience, he has witnessed more and more active small animals in the forest area, and the appearance of 10,000 yellow sheep makes him feel very shocked, which means that the local ecological environment is getting better and better.
So what kind of sheep is the yellow sheep, and why did it come all the way across the border to China?
«—[The "Family Tour" of the Wild Yellow Sheep in the Cold Winter of Layue·]—»
With its vast natural savannah, Arshan is an excellent habitat for wildlife, and it's not uncommon for wildlife to come in.
According to Bai Yuhua, a ranger, some yellow sheep come to play and forage every winter, but this year there are a lot of them, and other small animals appear. In his eyes, this is a sign that the ecology is gradually improving.
It is understood that there will be so many yellow sheep coming across the border this winter because the winter in Mongolia this year is extremely cold, and they come here to keep out the cold and satisfy hunger.
It can also be said that they are "fleeing famine", but there is also a bit of a seasonal migration factor.
When the weather is cold and food is scarce, animals in the wild will run to warm places to spend the winter, and the most common is the migration of birds, so the yellow sheep is no exception.
It is understood that in order to protect the yellow sheep population, the local relevant departments have also deliberately carried out relevant publicity work, pulling banners in the management area to raise people's awareness of wild yellow sheep.
At the same time, the local police have also stepped up patrols to strictly guard against all kinds of possible poaching.
In order to ensure the safety of the yellow sheep in winter, they also deliberately put 20,000 catties of hay and 10,000 catties of feed on the way through which the yellow sheep must pass.
In addition, in order to ensure the "balanced nutrition" of the yellow sheep, they also prepared 5,000 catties of animal husbandry salt for the yellow sheep.
This not only ensures that the yellow sheep has sufficient food sources, but also alleviates the contradiction between the yellow sheep and the property safety of the people, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
The migration of yellow sheep makes the tourists who come to the local tourism also feast their eyes, the Xing'an League looks at the mountains and fields are full of yellow sheep, even in the urban area can also see some, the nearby forest farms and valleys have their traces, so that a group of people are amazed.
Li Jingyu, a tourist who came to Inner Mongolia for a road trip, said that the trip was really meaningful, and after she took her children to the prairie, she saw not only yellow sheep, but also foxes and roe deer, and the place was like a natural animal paradise.
So what kind of sheep is a yellow sheep and why can it be so lovingly protected?
«—[Cute Yellow Sheep]—»
Yellow sheep belongs to the bovine family, is an endangered herbivorous antelope breed of the genus Protoantelope, the scientific name is "Mongolian antelope", it is mainly distributed in China, Mongolia and parts of Russia.
In addition to this, there are many varieties of antelope such as Przewalski's gazelle and goose-throated antelope.
The Mongolian antelope has large black eyes and a thick neck. The body length is mostly between 1 meter and 1.5 meters, and the limbs are slender and appear to be relatively medium and slender.
Yellow sheep usually have short hair, mostly yellow-brown and reddish-brown in color, of which the belly and limbs are white, and the tail is very short and the hair color is darker. In winter, though, their fur starts to become dense, thick, and brittle.
Maybe it's because the snow is very white in winter, and the hair on their bodies is a little lighter, and under the tail is a buttocks with large white spots, which twist and twist like a corgi.
Male goats have a pair of horns of about 20 cm, the horns stand upright on the top of the head, and the tips of the back horns are curved inward, while the female has only a pair of pointed ears standing upright on the top of the head, and the ears are facing forward.
From a distance, the yellow sheep seemed to be wearing an undyed brown robe, its hooves were narrow and pointed, it seemed to be dancing ballet when it ran, and its soft hair showed that it was very graceful.
The Mongolian antelope mostly inhabits semi-arid desert steppe areas, especially the steppe of the genus S. spp., and does not haunt the valleys and mountains unless necessary, and it does not like pure desert areas.
They usually like to move in groups, and in spring and autumn they will migrate in large numbers, and their migration direction is "north in spring and south in autumn".
They migrate over a large distance and range, and the migration direction and range are determined by the sparse vegetation and growth.
When they migrate south in winter, they usually look for dead grass and melted snow water on the way to satisfy their hunger, and when they are tired, they dig a pit in the snow, and all the yellow sheep cling to each other to keep warm from the cold.
When they return north in spring, they often go to the shores of saltwater lakes to lick the salt, and they will look for weeds such as miscanthus and needlegrass, shrubs, piglettus and other plants to satisfy their hunger, and sometimes eat some leaves.
This breed of sheep is very thirsty and can go without water for several days in a row. They are good at jumping, they can jump more than 2 meters high, and a vertical jump can reach a maximum of 10 meters. They are also very fast, reaching speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour.
It is only due to human poaching and over-exploitation of grasslands that some populations have disappeared and become rare wild animals in China, and according to online statistics, only the remaining 80,000 or so have moved to Mongolia to survive.
It seems that in addition to the seasonal physiological migration, human activities also account for part of the migration of yellow sheep.
What other animals like the yellow sheep migrate on a large scale, and what are the reasons for their migration?
«—Why do yellow sheep have to migrate?·]—»
Animal migration is an interesting natural phenomenon, and most of them are due to sudden changes in their native environment or natural food shortages and their own reproduction.
Animal migrations are divided into periodic and non-periodic mass migrations. The great migration of yellow sheep is a periodic seasonal migration, and they have their own fixed southward migration route every year.
Most animals migrate from north to south, but there are also east-west migrations and vertical migrations.
Depending on the way they behave, the movement of land animals is called "migration", and the movement of water animals is called "migration", such as salmon returning for the sake of raw fish.
Many animals migrate for different purposes, including wintering, foraging, and breeding.
Like the yellow sheep in the previous article, it is for wintering and satisfying hunger that he will lead the family army across the border and go to Arshan to live temporarily.
Most of the most familiar birds are the migratory birds, which fly from the north to the south in large numbers before winter arrives, and return again the following year when everything recovers.
Like the Arctic seagulls, they fly tens of thousands of kilometers to the Antarctic every year to survive, mainly to protect themselves from the cold and forage.
There is also the annual wildebeest migration is a very vivid example, and its scene is huge and spectacular.
Every year from July to October, the Serengeti is in the dry season, the vegetation is dry and food is scarce, and the millions of wildebeest begin their migration thousands of kilometres to feed.
They head north, across the desert, over the biting rivers, to the Masai Mara, which is rich in water and grass, accompanied by gazelles, zebras and a large number of other wild animals.
There are also the only bearded pigs in the wild boar class that migrate, and thousands of bearded pigs travel hundreds of kilometers every year just to eat a bite of seasonal fruit.
There are also reindeer, which usually migrate south to the taiga for the winter, and then return to the tundra zone in the north when they warm.
There is also vertical migration, which migrates to higher places to escape the heat in the heat, and when it is cold, animals from the high mountains usually move to lower places to escape the cold and forage for food.
In addition, there are some insects and rodents that have similar migratory behaviors, but most of them are related to the temperature environment, and these behaviors are more like self-preservation strategies implemented by animals in order to survive.
Of course, these are normal migrations, as well as non-cyclical migrations, which are mostly due to serious deterioration of the native environment.
«—【·Conclusion·】—»
In this way, the migratory behavior of animals is somewhat similar to the "escape" of humans, and if they do not leave in the face of extreme weather, the population is vulnerable to devastating blows, and if it does not become extinct, the number of survivors will be very small.
But fortunately, with the proper intervention of humans, these cute yellow sheep will grow up well.
Reference:
CCTV "Tens of thousands of yellow sheep form a cross-border "China tour" border town into a safari park" 2024-1-3