We have always known that The land of China is vast, and perhaps it can be seen from the distribution of tigers that among the 6 tigers in the world, China occupies 4 species, ranking first in the world. In fact, for thousands of years, there have been thousands of animals that have flourished in this part of China, and in terms of the animals called beasts, they are far more than tigers, in addition to wolves, leopards, jackals and the like, which is often called "jackals, tigers and leopards". Of course, bears, wild boars and the like can also be called beasts of prey, but today is not in the scope of our discussion.
Jackals, Tigers and Leopards
<h1>About jackals</h1>
Jackal for people, is a more mysterious species, may now many people do not know what kind of an animal, from the appearance, jackal size and dogs, smaller than wolves, body length between 0.85-1.3 meters, weight range is 15-32 kg, generally speaking, their weight is concentrated in about 20 kg, the larger jackal king can grow to more than 30 kg. The face is wider, the snout is shorter than that of the wolf, and the hair on the back is reddish brown, but it will vary slightly with the change of season and the difference in the living area, but the overall difference is not large, and the abdominal hair is light yellow or off-white.
Chinese Jackal
Jackal is a relatively adaptable animal, both heat-resistant, but also hardy, its main habitat for the south of the mountains, hills, in addition to Taiwan, Hainan, has been widely distributed in most parts of China, the northernmost can reach Heilongjiang.
Depending on the distribution area, the jackal can be divided into 11 subspecies, namely: Chinese jackal, Sichuan jackal, East Asian jackal, Indian jackal, Burmese jackal, Javan jackal, West Asian jackal, Indochina jackal, Himalayan jackal, Kashmiri jackal and Sumatran jackal. There are many jackal varieties in China, and the distribution area in China is also different:
Chinese Jackal: distributed in most of the south of the Yangtze River;
Sichuan Jackal: distributed in the west, mainly in western Sichuan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia;
East Asian Jackal: distributed in the three northeastern provinces, as well as parts of Inner Mongolia;
West Asian Jackal: distributed in Xinjiang;
Kashmiri jackal: distributed in southwest China and southern Tibet.
From here, we can see that jackals were once widely distributed in the land of China, they feed on various animals, and often walk around in the mountains and forests. They are alert and fierce, active in the morning and evening, and like to chase in groups in the forest, mainly preying on some hares, wild boars and the like, but occasionally eating some livestock.
Distribution map of jackals
Before the 1980s, there were still many jackals in China, especially in the northwest of Jiangxi, there were many jackals, and perhaps young people in their 20s had not heard much about it now, but people who were 40 years old had more or less heard of the elders at home.
But since the 1980s, jackal populations have plummeted, and today they are hard to find in most of China's mountain forests. Over the years, in order to find the "Jackal Shadow", many scientific research teams and scholars have teamed up to investigate several times, but unfortunately, most of the time they have "returned home".
"Jackal Shadow" photographed in The Blackwater River Nature Reserve
In 2013, the infrared trigger camera of Sichuan Heishuihe Nature Reserve monitored the photo of the jackal, which attracted widespread attention, which is the first time in more than 30 years that people found the "jackal shadow" in the reserve, which is an exciting thing, this discovery has high scientific, social and ecological value, the emergence of the jackal, but also an affirmation of the local environmental protection, because they are similar to animals such as tigers and leopards, the environmental requirements are very high.
The large-scale decline in the number of jackals was almost concentrated in the 1980s and 1990s, when as the population grew, the demand for natural resources also increased, and deforestation and reclamation of wasteland were the biggest factors affecting the jackal population, because the loss of habitat would bring a series of conflicts, leading people to focus on the jackal.
Although humans do not have sharp teeth and claws, but can come up with a variety of ways to deal with the jackal group, in addition to poison, traps, traps, shotguns, there is a most harmful way, that is, micro explosives, people with pork, offal, etc. to wrap this miniature explosives, and then placed in the jackal group infested place, when the jackal group surrounded, the sound of "Boom", that is, the death and injury of the large piece, compared to the trap, the harm is more.
Jackals
Of course, in addition to the jackals that people directly remove, due to the plundering of nature by humans, the habitat of the jackals has been dispersed and divided into large and small areas, which is also the reason for the sharp decline in the number of jackals.
Take the Guanshan National Nature Reserve in Yifeng County, which has been banned since the end of the Ming Dynasty, and hunters are not allowed to go into the mountains to hunt, so naturally there are no humans to endanger the growth of wild animals inside, but why has the jackal herd also disappeared?
In fact, it is not difficult to understand, in the protected area, the small jackal group will gradually grow, to a certain extent will be "separated", the formation of a number of small jackal groups, and then a number of small jackal groups gradually grow, will go to the outside of the reserve to forage, but once out of the reserve, it will be ruthlessly hunted, so the jackal group in the reserve can not communicate with the outside jackal group, and then inbreeding and other issues appear, in the long run, genetic diversity decreases, population decline is inevitable.
Of course, the decline of a species is not determined by a single factor, but a combination of many factors, throughout the changes in the Chinese jackal population, its main concentration period is the eighties and nineties of the last century, the main reason is the contradiction between the development of human productivity and wild animals, in layman's terms is that when we are getting richer, we can buy more and more cattle, but when we go outside, they are eaten by the jackal herd, which is definitely not OK.
<h1>About wolves</h1>
Wolves are an animal that people love and hate, among which some attributes of wolves are often compared to humans, and people in many parts of china often take wolves to live with themselves, such as inner Mongolian Hanzi often call themselves Mongolian wolves, northwest wolves and the like. People worship the wolf mainly because it is a symbol of unity, ferocity, and fierceness, even in the face of fierce tigers, the wolf pack has the power to fight; and people hate the wolf, mainly because its harm to animal husbandry is too great, and the cattle and sheep that herders have hard to raise may be killed and injured overnight because of the attack of the wolf pack.
Mongol wolf
There are many subspecies of wolves, almost all regions of the world have distribution, most of the wolves in China are Mongolian wolves, Tibetan wolves, Eurasian wolves and other species, compared with the North American gray wolf, Arctic wolf and other elegant middle schools, the size is much smaller.
Regardless of the region, the Chinese wolf is not very large, generally between 20-35 kg, the body hair is brownish yellow, the tip of the hair is often black, and the abdominal hair is light yellow or pale white. The Mongol wolf was larger in the early days, but the modern Mongol wolf is much smaller than before.
Tibetan wolf
Wolves have spread throughout the Chinese mainland, from south to north, from east to west, but since the 1950s, China's wolf pack and its range have been shrinking, in 2003, China is estimated to have 12,500 wolves, but today the number of Chinese wolves has not been much, Tibet has about 2,000, Heilongjiang has about 650, Xinjiang is a little more, about 10,000, in 2008 the number of wolves in the Inner Mongolia Hulunbuir steppe is estimated to be no more than 2,000 Its distribution range has also shrunk from the whole country to a sporadic distribution, most of which is concentrated in the northwest region.
As I said before, people love and hate wolves, and those who are in constant contact with wolves hate far more than love.
For example, in an assessment of Tibetan wolves, wolves are the most important predators in the region, and 60% of the livestock loss is caused by Tibetan wolves, of which domestic goats account for 32%, sheep account for 30%, yaks account for 15%, horses account for 13%, and their harm to livestock is greater than that of snow leopards and Eurasian lynx.
In the 1950s, the wolf pack flood seriously affected the development of China's animal husbandry, so a wide range of wolf extermination activities were carried out, but at that time, because the level of human science and technology was not very high, and because the number of wolves was too much, it did not have much impact on the development of the wolf pack.
Wolves
With decades of struggle between humans and wolves, humans gradually gained the upper hand, and by the end of the 1970s, it was difficult to see large wolves; by the 1980s, wolves were rarely seen; and by the end of the 20th century, wolves in many parts of China had become extinct.
In fact, looking at the development trajectory of wolves and jackals, it is not difficult to find that the reason for the sharp decline in their numbers is almost always the conflict with human development, of which the reduction of habitat and human hunting are the biggest culprits.
<h1>The death of the beast is right and wrong</h1>
Whether it is a jackal or a wolf, if it is flooded, then not only other local wild animals will suffer a catastrophe, the harm to humans is also huge, far from it, let's say that since 2007, the pasture in Xinjiang has been threatened by wolves, more than 600 cattle and sheep in the Selikti ranch have been bitten to death, and the direct economic loss has reached 550,000, these wolves not only come at night, but also dare to blatantly attack the pasture during the day, in addition, humans sometimes become the target of the wolf pack;
In 2008, the northern part of the Alxa League in Inner Mongolia was also often plagued by wolves, which crossed the border from Mongolia and attacked the cattle and sheep of the local herders, causing a very big disaster to the local people, and a herder in the Ma mane Mountain area alone ate 16 sheep in just two months.
Livestock killed by wolves
These are all happening in today's environment, I dare not imagine how serious it would be if it were still like before, if the mountains and forests were full of jackals, wolves, tigers and leopards, I am afraid that no school would dare to organize an autumn tour, right?
The development of the human world is bound to affect other wild animal groups, compared to antelopes, deer and other aggressive species are not very strong, jackals, wolves and other conflicts with humans are undoubtedly relatively large, according to historical records, in some places in Ladakh, wolves will even attack children, which has played a serious threat to people's life safety.
Simple model of the food chain
So when it comes to wildlife, we have to look at it from multiple perspectives, so is it better that these beasts have been wiped out? Obviously not, wolves and jackals for the ecological environment, are a vital species, when we are very young we have learned about the biological chain, simply put, rabbits eat grass, wolves eat rabbits, when the wolves are wiped out, the number of rabbits will grow wildly, then the vegetation will be destroyed, and then the entire ecosystem may collapse.
Australian hares are infested
The simplest example is the Australian hare disaster, because of the special environment in Australia, there are not many predators, so the hare breeds wildly after arriving there, destroying a large amount of vegetation, the local people are overwhelmed, and even it took a century to control the rabbit population.
Left: Wolf; Right: Jackal
Nowadays, jackals and wolves are all protected animals of the state, and have also established protected areas, and at present, as far as the living conditions in various parts of our country are concerned, it is impossible for these species to return to the prosperity of the past, and what we have to do is to do our best to protect them, let them return to a safe level, and ensure that these species will not become extinct.