In the middle of the 3,000-mile Qinling Mountains, there is a narrow mountain pass in the shape of a clam, which hides a small county town with a population of only 35,000 and a forest kingdom where giant pandas can often be seen. This is Foping County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, where locals affectionately refer to giant pandas as "cats", but two other common protected wild animals do not have this treatment, "As long as the canopy marshal and the bull devil king go down the mountain, there are crops that suffer, which is very annoying!" "Marshal canopy is talking about wild boar, and the bull devil is another animal, although vegetarian, but more disturbing to the locals than wild boar, the same scourge of crops, the same easy to hurt people, and with the giant panda to grab food." This animal is the antelope, but it is also one of the "Four Treasures of Qinling Mountains" alongside the giant panda.
Antelope that annoys local villagers more than wild boars. Courtesy of respondents
There are more and more "marshals of the canopy"
Foping, with a forest coverage rate of 91.19%, gathers the "four treasures of Qinling Mountains" of giant pandas, golden snub-nosed monkeys, antelopes and crested ibises, and is also known as the "first county of pandas" because of the extremely high distribution density of giant pandas in the wild. But in recent years, people have discussed the topic of local wildlife, in addition to pandas, but also antelopes and wild boars.
Cao Qing, a 54-year-old senior engineer at the Foping National Nature Reserve Administration in Shaanxi and a scholar accustomed to documenting wild animals in Qinling, used the passage in Journey to the West to mention wild boars and antelopes to reporters: marshals of the canopy have thick fangs and mouths, like nail rakes, rushing down from the hillside to ravage farmers' crops; the Bull Devil King has horns like iron forks, and his body is extremely strong, and once he is disturbed, he will rampage and make people fly directly.
On the desk of Jia Jinle, a staff member of the Foping County Forestry Bureau, there is a document about an inch thick, which compiles the records of personal and property damage caused by wild boar, antelope, black bear and other wild animals in various villages in the county. "This year, wild boars have not hurt people, most of them have ruined the villagers' crops." According to a "Statistical Table of Area Damaged by Wild Boars in Venus Village" displayed by Jia Jinle, 20 villagers' cash crops were damaged by wild boars.
A villager surnamed He in Chenjiaba Village, Foping County, planted tianma that has just been destroyed by wild boars, "Last year, the tianma arched by wild boars made 30,000 or 40,000 yuan adrift." This year, another tianma was destroyed by wild boars, and they were about to be annoyed by this group of wild boars. But Mr. He said that he was not much, "Some people's homes, all the tianma planted in one night was all arched by wild boars, and that moment was really a feeling of ruin." ”
A picture of a wild boar taken on the southern slope of Qinling Mountain. Courtesy of respondents
"It's not easy to plant an acre of corn in a ravine." A number of villagers in Jinxing Village told reporters that the number of wild boars in Qinling has increased significantly in recent years. "The cultivated land in Fopingshan Village is rare and precious, and it is of course very painful to be chewed off by wild boars," said Mr. Zhang of Sanlanggou Village, who said that when the land was divided in the last century, the wife who had just married the family did not get the land, and the whole family only got seven points of land. In my area, wild boars actually only emerged this year, and I haven't seen wild boars last year. ”
"Panda eats my honey, not at all distressed"
Xiong Baiquan, a 59-year-old ranger, has participated in the protection of wild animals since the establishment of the Foping Conservation Area in 1980, and he has witnessed the ecological changes in Foping County in the past 42 years. "In the 1980s, in the mountains can still see the steel wire sleeves, iron clips and other hunting tools, there are some logging people, from 1998, the Qinling Mountains to implement the "natural forest protection project", stop the commercial logging of natural forests, after which the phenomenon of logging does not exist; in addition, with the creation of national nature reserves, people's awareness of protecting wild animals has increased, and the phenomenon of illegal hunting has basically disappeared. ”
"Now the villagers in Foping, the awareness of protecting wild animals is very high. People subconsciously feel that since it is a nature reserve, all animals in the reserve should be protected, even the evil canopy marshal. Cao Qing said, and in the protected area can not use the iron sleeve to catch wild boar, in case of injury to the panda?
The road 120 kilometers west of Foping County, like a long snake, winds up the mountain, sharp turns one after another, known as the "Panda Village", Daguping Village is between this layer of mountain roads.
Wang Xiaolin, secretary of the village party committee, said that there are now more than two hundred registered residents in Daguping Village, and the permanent population is only more than fifty people, but almost everyone in the village has seen pandas, "It is not an exaggeration to say that almost every villager's mobile phone has kept his own panda photos. Cao Qing told reporters that Wang Xiaolin's "panda edge" is particularly good, you can get close to a wild giant panda called "Joy", "Joy does not recognize life in front of him, willing to eat the bamboo he personally sent." ”
But Wang Xiaolin's family corn field was also damaged by the "marshal of the canopy", "This year, eight or nine points of corn were gnawed away by wild boars." Wang Xiaolin smiled bitterly, "The strange thing is that when the wild boar came, we don't know, you know, our family's house is only thirty or forty meters away from the cornfield." ”
The cornfield of Wang Xiaolin's family in Daguping Village, Foping County, Shaanxi Province, was arched by a wild boar. Courtesy of respondents
Song Huailian, 55, showed obvious "eccentricity", "Panda eats my honey, I am not at all distressed, but if the wild boar eats it, I can't help but get angry." Song Huailian is also used to calling the antelope as a white sheep, "This year, the rapeseed planted at home has been eaten by the white sheep." Some villagers took over, "If the antelope doesn't hurt you, it's okay to hurt people, eat some crops and pay the state compensation." ”
Antelopes are more nervous than wild boars
The villagers smelled the "white sheep" discolored, and if anyone saw the antelope, they shouted: "The Bull Devil King is coming down!" "The whole village will immediately tense up, and more than 60 dogs will bark in unison in the direction of the village entrance." According to a document compiled by Jia Jinle, in 2021, there were 6 cases of personal injury caused by wild animals under national key protection in Foping County, and 3 cases of antelope and black bears were caused.
On May 7 this year, 64-year-old Yuan Mingdeng, when walking from Chenjiaba Street to Shawan Trail, was hospitalized without warning by an antelope, "The antelope head is powerful, can pick people up and circle in the air." Jia Jinle recalled to reporters that one year, after encountering an antelope on the road with his colleagues, they were attacked, and the two hurriedly climbed to the tree to avoid the crazy collision of the antelope.
Antelope, known to the villagers as the "Bull Devil King". Courtesy of respondents
A villager in his 60s in Chenjiaba Town was injured by an antelope and lived in the hospital for more than half a month, leaving a scar of more than two inches on his body. He told reporters, "That afternoon, an antelope suddenly crashed straight over, and I felt that the horn was burrowing into my arm, and the blood was flowing down, and before I could react, I was thrown to the ground by it again." ”
Cao Qing introduced that the antelope is currently the largest animal in Qinling, the individual weight is generally more than 500 pounds, living in groups, sometimes in the winter when the mountain lacks food, will go down the mountain in groups to forage, "but in fact, they generally do not take the initiative to attack humans, the attack is strong are those sick cattle, hungry cattle." In general, humans can be at peace as long as they maintain a safe distance from antelope. Cao Qing suggested that if an antelope collides, people should quickly dodge to both sides, "Antelope bumping into people is straight, not much turning." ”
Cao Qing introduced to the Beijing News reporter that after receiving the "cattle situation report", the community or the protected area can generally only adopt a conservative approach, that is, continue to observe without causing loss of villagers' lives and property. "The villagers also know that antelope is a national key protected wild animal and cannot be harmed." Cao Qing feels that the villagers in the reserve have made a lot of sacrifices in order to protect wild animals, and even some villagers' crops have not reported losses after being stolen by animals, "They have been neighbors with animals for generations, and they have integrated coexistence with wild animals into their lives." ”
Who pays
The "Fourth Giant Panda Survey Report of Shaanxi Province" believes that antelope is a competitive animal of giant pandas, and its existence has a good side and a negative side to giant panda activities. On the one hand, in the mountains, groups of antelope activities can often trample out a beast road in the dense bamboo forest, which can be used by various animals such as giant pandas, which provides convenience for giant panda activities; on the other hand, antelopes eat bashan wood bamboo shoots and the leaves of Qinling arrow bamboo shoots, due to the large number of antelope populations, the damage caused to the local area of bamboo forests is very obvious, in the area where antelope activities are dense, bamboo is often eaten up, which is equivalent to "grabbing food" with giant pandas.
"Antelope injuries occur from time to time, the reason is that on the one hand, due to their small number of natural enemies, high reproductive success rate, the increasing number of their breeding populations will inevitably have more demand for habitat, which in turn leads to an increase in the probability of conflict with people, on the other hand, it is caused by individual abnormal behavior or people too close to antelope."
Wild animals under national key protection, such as antelopes, have clear compensation measures at the national level for the personal and property damage they cause. According to the "Measures for Compensation for Personal and Property Damage Caused by Terrestrial Wild Animals under Key Protection in Shaanxi Province", the province, city and county shall bear the proportions of 80%, 10% and 10% respectively for personal injury compensation; for property damage compensation fees, the province, city and county shall bear the proportion of 20%, 40% and 40% respectively. This year, in 6 cases of personal and property damage to wild animals under key protection in Foping County, the government compensated a total of 90,373.42 yuan.
However, for wild animals under non-national key protection such as wild boars, there has been no clear compensation method. However, since May this year, the Foping County Forestry Bureau issued the "Foping County Wildlife Damage Compensation Insurance Implementation Measures", Jia Jinle introduced, "Farmers' arable land and forest land are insured by the government, so that if the crops are abused by wild boars, they can be settled by the insurance company." ”
According to the data of the "Fourth Giant Panda Survey Report of Shaanxi Province", wild boars are widely distributed in the giant panda survey area, and are the main competitors of giant pandas in the bamboo shoot-eating period, and a large number of bamboo is also collected to make nests during the breeding period, which is mostly found on the slopes and gentler tops of the beams, which has a certain destructive effect on the bamboo forest; due to the prohibition of hunting and the lack of sufficient predator control, the population has increased in recent years, which has had a certain impact on the habitat of giant pandas.
In fact, giant pandas, wild boars and antelopes have lived together for millions of years in the Qinling Mountains of the vast green sea, and in the long historical interpretation, a delicate balance relationship between species has once been formed. "The harm caused by the flooding of wild boars is very great, but because they live with animals such as pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys, it is very difficult to control the number of wild boars without disturbing other animals." But Cao Qing said wild boars currently have few natural predators in the Qinling Mountains, breed fast, and if they are allowed to flood, it may be a problem.
Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
Edited by Tang Zheng Proofreader Li Shihui