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Cover news reporter Dai Rui
Decades after the violation, the auspicious "big cat" reappeared in the lives of herders in the forest farm of Qinghai's Beishan Mountains.
The forest site is located in the southeast of Qilian Mountain on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with an average altitude of more than 2,500 meters, and older herders have heard the elderly talk about the "big cat", a gray and white big cat , the scientific name of the snow leopard. This animal, which sits at the top of the food chain of alpine ecosystems, is known as the "King of Snowy Mountains" because it often moves near the alpine snow line in the heart of Asia.
On the eve of the "June Five-Year Environment Day", the cover reporter followed the interview team of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to the Beishan Forest Farm in Huzhu County, Qinghai Province. In October last year, images of snow leopards were taken through infrared cameras, providing new evidence for the biodiversity of beishan forest farms.
Zhao Changhong, director of beishan forest farm, introduced that the forest coverage rate of Beishan forest farm has reached 79.06%, known as "green kingdom", and there are currently 1209 species of higher plants with named names, including 51 species of national key protected plants. There are 198 species of wild animals, including 35 species of animals under national key protection, which is one of the most important areas for biodiversity in Qinghai Province. In addition to snow leopards, there are rare animals such as spotted hazelnut chickens, desert cats, black storks, yellow-billed egrets, and rare plants such as jade dragon fern and peach seven.
In July 2020, the Institute of Northwest Plateau Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beishan Forest Farm jointly launched the investigation of infrared cameras for wild animals in the Beishan Forest Farm, and a total of 24 infrared cameras were deployed. Three months later, the infrared camera made a surprising discovery: a large snow leopard appeared in front of the camera with a small snow leopard to play, confirming the existence of snow leopards at the eastern end of Qilian Mountain.
An infrared camera captures an image of a snow leopard. Infographic
The reporter learned that the snow leopard is the flagship species of the plateau ecosystem, known as the "barometer" of the health of the high-altitude ecosystem, and its discovery proves that the protected area is ecologically healthy, rich in species, and the food chain is complete. As a national key protected animal, there are only 4,000 to 7,000 snow leopards in the world, mainly distributed in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Pamir Plateau regions.
Unlike the sparsely populated snow leopard habitat in the past, Beishan Forest Farm is 33 kilometers away from the county seat of Huzhu county and only 55 kilometers away from Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province. Someone commented on the Internet that "the snow leopard is getting closer and closer to Xining."
Beishan Forest Farm, Huzhu County, Qinghai Province. Cover news reporter Dai Rui photography
"This is a very good interpretation of the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, and it also better reflects the strength of Qinghai Province for ecological environmental protection." Dr. Lian Xinming, an associate researcher at the Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once told the media that the discovery means that the distribution area of the snow leopard is extended to the easternmost end of the Qilian Mountains, enriching the record of the snow leopard distribution area, and it is also the first time that the physical image of the snow leopard has been recorded in eastern Qinghai, which is of great significance.
After the discovery of the snow leopard, in order to protect the personal safety of the snow leopard habitat and nearby residents, the Beishan Forest Farm set up a warning sign near the snow leopard activity area to prohibit personnel from entering, and the forest farm also increased the patrol of this area, increasing the number of patrol personnel from two or three to five.
It is understood that at present, there are 610 forest resource management and protection personnel in Beishan Forest Farm, including 184 social forest rangers, 253 ecological forest rangers, and 87 scattered area management and protection personnel.
Chen Wenhuan, 58, is a ranger at Beishan Forest Farm and has been working as a ranger for nine years. He told reporters that in recent years, through the publicity of environmental protection to the masses, the environmental awareness of forest farm residents has been greatly improved, "in the past, villagers would catch pheasants and wild deer on the mountain, but after publicity and education, this phenomenon has basically not appeared now."
Chen Wenhuan, a ranger at Beishan Forest Farm. Cover news reporter Dai Rui photography
"With the increase of protection in recent years, the variety and number of animals and plants in our forest farms have increased." Zhao Changhong introduced that this fully shows that the Beishan Forest Area is a very rich biodiversity area, and it is also the embodiment of the gradual improvement of the ecological environment of beishan Mountain.
The increasing abundance of biodiversity is also inseparable from the regulation of the environmental sector. Ma Jun, director of the Ecological and Environmental Bureau of Huzhu County, told reporters that at present, the environmental department mainly carries out supervision work around the four aspects of water, soil, gas and ecology. In the Beishan Forest Farm and the surrounding area, there are two water environment state control sites and two atmospheric state control sites.
Ma Jun introduced that the environmental department will regularly inspect the Beishan Forest Farm, mainly supervising the management of the forest farm, including whether the water body is polluted, whether the domestic garbage can be dealt with in time.
"In the past five years, we have not found any problems of environmental pollution in beishan forest farm, and if we find it, we will punish it in strict accordance with relevant laws and regulations." Ma Jun introduced that at present, the number of good air days in forest farms is more than 99%, and more than 60% of water bodies are better than class II water quality.
The cover news reporter learned from the Qinghai Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment that during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the proportion of surface water quality in Qinghai Province that reached or was better than that of Class III water bodies increased by 36.7 percentage points, and inferior Class V water bodies were completely eliminated; at the end of 2020, the proportion of days with excellent air quality in the province was 97.2%.
It is understood that There are currently 79 nature reserves of various types in Qinghai Province, with a total area of 263,700 square kilometers, accounting for 36.55% of the province's land area. The number of rare and endangered animals such as snow leopard, Tibetan antelope and Przewalski's gazelle has increased year by year, with the number of Przewalski's hartebeest (Chinese diagonal antelope) recovering from less than 300 at the end of the last century to about 3,000, the Tibetan antelope recovering from less than 20,000 at the lowest to about 70,000, and the number of snow leopards rising to more than 1,800.
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