White-headed hard-tailed duck is listed as a national first-class protected animal Xinjiang is the only breeding ground for white-headed hard-tailed ducks in China

In recent years, the ecological environment of the White Bird Lake Wetland has been significantly improved, and at present, there are more than 150 species of birds inhabited by the White Bird Lake. The picture shows a white-headed hard-tailed duck swimming in the Lake of White Birds. (Photo by Ma Long, a volunteer of Xinjiang", "Birds Of Plenty")

Xinjiang Network News (reporter Rao Junhua) Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the State Forestry and Grassland Administration released the latest adjustment of the "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection", and the white-headed hard-tailed duck was listed as a national first-level key protected wild animal.

Ma Ming, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an expert in birds, said that the white-headed hard-tailed duck has been rated as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with a global number of 7,000 to 13,100, mainly distributed in Spain, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Mongolia and other countries.

Jiang Kewei, head of the volunteer team of Xinjiang's "Bird Hui", said that he has been involved in conservation since he first observed the white-headed hard-tailed duck in the Bai bird lake wetland in 2007 and has never stopped for more than a decade. Before the release of the latest "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection", the white-headed hard-tailed duck was only a first-level protected wild animal in the autonomous region, and now it is listed as a national-level key protected wild animal, so the corresponding protection will also be improved.

Chen Yuzhen, secretary general of Xinjiang's "BirdWay" volunteer team, said that last summer, the volunteer team member Ma Long observed four adult white-headed hard-tailed ducks and two small ducks in the Bai bird lake wetland.

"Except for the long-term record of juvenile breeding in Urumqi Bainiao Lake Wetland and Kuitun Wetland, there are very few stable breeding records in other waters." Gou Jun, chairman of the Xinjiang Bird Watching Association, said that because the white-headed hard-tailed duck is a breeding bird or a traveling bird in Xinjiang, in recent years, although researchers have found more than ten white-headed hard-tailed ducks in Xinjiang, these habitats can mostly see the transit of white-headed hard-tailed ducks during the migration season, and rarely find them staying in the local breeding.

It is understood that in recent years, the ecological environment of the white bird lake wetland has been significantly improved, the lake vegetation is abundant, the number of bird populations has greatly increased, at present, the white bird lake inhabits more than 150 species, and the white-headed hard-tailed duck is the star species in the white bird lake.