Recently, the Green Development Council announced that according to its field research, infrared camera field records and visits in recent years, the Chinese pangolin has become "functionally extinct" in mainland China. It immediately aroused widespread concern among netizens. Some experts questioned this conclusion.
What's going on here? I'm going to tell you my opinion today.
01, is the pangolin really "functionally extinct"?
Here is a brief introduction, there are a total of 8 species of pangolins in the world, namely the Indian pangolin, the Chinese pangolin, the Malay pangolin, the Philippine pangolin, the large pangolin, the South African pangolin, the tree pangolin and the long-tailed pangolin. The first four are mainly distributed in Asia, and the last four are mainly distributed in Africa. The Chinese pangolin is endemic to China and is distributed in 18 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions) including Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Fujian and Chongqing. It is a national first-class protected wild animal. Because pangolin scales can be used as a medicinal ingredient, they have been hunted and killed, and their habitat has been destroyed, so that their numbers are rapidly decreasing.
In addition, the phrase "functional extinction" is always regarded as xx. For example, you must support me, otherwise you are against xx (some grand concept). In fact, it is the real interest that is relevant.
As many netizens mentioned, a certain association has been trying to release Malay pangolins in China to do this kind of artificial assistance species invasion.
It has only been resisted by wise governments and experts, otherwise the risk of future uncontrollable future incursions into most of our territory will continue to increase once the Malay pangolin has widespread. It is more likely to lead to the complete extinction of the native Chinese pangolin, which we made when the baby fish made this mistake.
02, damage to the invasive species themselves
Over the years, the suffering of species invasion that china has suffered can be said to be too much. In fact, there are many types of species invasions.
The first category is those that cause harm everywhere, such as the typical red fire ant.
The spread of red fire ants can be said to be exponential, the following figure is the spread rate of red fire ants in 10 years, which shows the strength of its diffusion.
The second category is harmless in the place of origin, but harmful elsewhere
Typical is the water hyacinth. In the last century, in order to control Dianchi Lake, we introduced water hyacinth from abroad, who knew that water hyacinth multiplied particularly fast, lack of natural enemies, a large number of reproduction, soon led to Dianchi Lake being covered by water hyacinth, resulting in serious lack of oxygen in the entire Dianchi Lake, not only fish death, even algae and other aquatic plants can not survive. In the end, the state spent a huge amount of money to govern Dianchi Lake.
Different species eventually adapt to each place, there must be a reason, adapted to the local environment, the most important thing is to form a very stable ecology, both natural enemies and prey. If you go to a new place, once you lose these conditions, it can become harmful.
1. What is the reproductive capacity of Malay pangolins? What is the breeding cycle? If the environment is changed, will it cause a change in the population?
2. What are the natural enemies of Malay pangolins? If the environment is changed, the lack of natural enemies will lead to a large outbreak of the population?
3. What is the feeding habit of Malay pangolins? Will it bring about losses in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and animal husbandry?
These questions are question marks, which is why we are constantly wary of invasive species. If artificially placed in Southeast Asia, such as the Malay pangolin, could eventually lead to further damage to the Chinese pangolin native to China.
03, a large number of release of single species to the original species of harm
Here, I'll tell you about a famous case of animal protection errors: the giant salamander. Giant salamander, a common creature, once thought that there was only one giant salamander in the wild, and the giant salamander can be domesticated, so the giant salamander has been artificially bred everywhere and then released into the wild.
However, a 2018 study found that the giant salamander in the wild is not one species, but at least 6 species of giant salamander, and the results of our artificial stocking are:
Artificial giant salamanders have encroached on the territory of other giant salamanders, resulting in many giant salamanders may have been extinct before we can find them, which can be said to be an important case of good intentions in environmental protection.
Finally, the Chinese pangolin is not extinct, and if it is really to release the Malay pangolin, it is actually destroying the environment.