Wildlife Preservation along the Yangtze River

200 Million Yuan Spent to Make Life Route for Chinese Sturgeon

On July 18, 2016, Zhixi Yangtze River Bridge,the sixth bridge over the Yangtze River in Yichang, was officially opened to traffic.

There was a festive mood,with gongs and drums playing,Yuan Qinghua, chief engineer of the Housing and Construction Commission of Yichang City,gave a sigh of relief. He had been walking on eggshells ever since the bridge started construction.

The site of Zhixi Yangtze River Bridge happened to be the only all-year spawning ground for Chinese sturgeon on the Yangtze River. A spawning ground of this kind was naturally and rarely formed in the lower reaches of Gezhouba Dam. Therefore,preservation of this natural spawning ground is crucial to the reproduction and breeding of the Chinese sturgeon.

The original design of the bridge was a three-tower cable bridge with a pier in the middle,which proved to be the most economical choice, but the bridge piers would have inevitably hindered the migration route of the Chinese sturgeon in their spawning activities.

Then an alternative design was adopted to alter the threetower cable bridge into a twospan suspension bridge with a maximum span of 800 meters.However, this style of bridge construction could only ensure that it would not have a low water level during the dry season, while still affecting the life of sturgeons.

To solve this problem, the middle span had to be extended to 838 meters, which means at least an additional 200 million yuan was needed in investment.Yuan Qinghua and other experts decided to prioritize ecology and spend more money in order to protect the marine environment of the Chinese sturgeon.

Yuan Qinghua was very cautious in his decisions and actions that followed. For instance, Chinese sturgeons are nocturnal, so in order not to disturb them while maintaining the night traffic, Yuan Qinghua and other experts chose lowvoltage and energy-conserving light bulbs to achieve soft irradiation, which prevented direct light or reflections of parapet lights on the river surface.As a result, the bridge was illuminated while the water area under bridge was still dark.

To everyone’s delight, at the end of the year when the bridge was completed and open to traffic,researchers detected traces of Chinese sturgeon spawning in the core waters of the protected area under the bridge. Yuan Qinghua was enormously relieved by this news. The story of a bridge giving way to Chinese sturgeon also became the warmest memory of the city.

至喜長江大橋夜景The night view of the Zhixi Yangtze River Bridge

The Deer Guardian of Yun-meng Lakes

“There is a big lake in the State of Chu, where rhinoceros and deer can be seen everywhere.” A saying from Mozi went like this. (Mozi,the book named after the great Chinese philosopher Mozi.)

Located in Shishou City, Hubei Province, China, the Swan Island of Yangtze River was a part of the ancient Yun-meng Lakes. It had been a deer habitat since ancient times and was now a reserve land for the Chinese milu deer. With more than a thousand deer, this reserve boasted the largest wild milu deer population in China—and even in the world.

200 years ago, milu deer were practically extinct in China,except for the 18 deer kept in the Nanhaizi Royal Hunting Park in Beijing. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces occupied Beijing,these 18 deer disappeared in the war. Around 1900, the British Duke of Bedford purchased 18 milu deer from some European zoos and kept them at his estate.

In the 1990s, the milu deer was introduced back to China from the United Kingdom and have resided and thrived on Swan Island ever since.“This is our elf on the side of Yun-meng Lakes.” Li Pengfei said.Words are not enough to describe the beauty of these animals.

Now in his sixties, Li Pengfei has been working with milu deer for more than 20 years. He was once a local secondary school teacher, with a comfortable working environment and a decent salary. However, he eventually gave up his teaching job and worked in the reserve lands, which are geographically remote, with inconvenient commutes and harsh living conditions.

In 1995, an experiment was conducted concerning restocking the area with deer. Since there was no precedent, Li Pengfei had been tracking down the deer in the wild for many years in order to learn more about their living habits and regular activities.

In the summer of 1998, a disastrous flood broke out in the Yangtze River Valley, turning the reserve on the old watercourse of the river into a big swamp.“Jiaojiao,” a one-week-old female baby deer, was washed away from its mother by a torrent. Li Pengfei,who was then responsible for animal protection, fortunately took her in.

After that, Li Pengfei began to feed this baby deer ten times a day, and bravely simulated a mother deer’s hygienic behaviors by personally scrubbing Jiaojiao’s anus. From then on, Jiaojiao was almost inseparable from him.Whenever she heard Li Pengfei’s footsteps, she scampered over happily.

When Jiaojiao turned one year old, Li Pengfei released her into her wild deer herd with tears in his eyes. In the first few months,when he went to the place,Jiaojiao would still run to him.Nowadays she is no different from other wild deer—Li Pengfei could no longer distinguish her from the others.

The story of Li Pengfei and Jiaojiao impressed many people.Wuhan TV Station made a children’s TV program named Going Home, with Jiaojiao as the leading hero. The TV program won a“Best Actor Award” and a“World Peace Prize” in an international film competition in Italy.

Today, the number of milu deer has increased from 94 when it was first brought back to China to more than 1,000. It has become a model for successful reintroduction of species in China.

The Affectionate Monologue of a Baby Yangtze Finless Porpoise

My name is Jiaojiao. I live in the National Reserve of Finless Porpoise, located on the Swan Island of Yangtze River. I also live with my dad“Tiantian”and my mom“E’e” happily.

Our breakfast is at 7 o’clock in the morning. Gao Daobin, our feedman, always feeds us with fresh small fish at that time.

We live a very regular life packed with four meals a day with reasonable portions and a fixed feed time. We also participate in some training activities and exercises guided by our feedmen during the daytime. The feedmen take good care of us—probably better than their own kids—providing us 24-hour patrol services.

One day, I fell sick and showed less appetite and physical weakness. They were very nervous and gave me a thorough checkup. After careful diagnosis and treatment, I recovered very quickly.

Whether it is rainy, windy,snowy, or with high waves, they will all move to the poolside observation room for overnight supervision. Every day, the patrol boats navigate around, inspecting possible illegal fishing or polluters who’d receive severe punishment once discovered.

Born on May 22, 2016 I was the first successful cage-bred finless porpoise in the world.“Jiaojiao” is actually my pet name. My official name had been voted on a number of websites initiated by the World Wildlife Fund, and later the result was formally announced by the National Department of Agriculture as“Beibei” on May 22,2017. It was a great pleasure for me.

However, another bittersweet moment is approaching. Since I’m reaching my adulthood, I’ll be leaving my parents in a while and living in the main waterway of the Yangtze River, where a wider and more mysterious world is waiting for me.

英國安妮公主在武漢水生所參觀江豚Anne, Princess Royal watching finless porpoise at Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Science in Wuhan

Speaking of my habitat, it’s a wonderful place! It is the first national Conservation for Cetacean Habitat, covering an area of 152.5 square kilometers.The environment here is particularly favorable, with fresh air and clear water and it’s far away from any chemical plants or fowl farms. At the very beginning, only five of us dwelt here, and now the number has reached more than 60. I learned from my dad that our numbers were dwindling because of human interference. Later, humans realized the importance of protecting the Yangtze River as well as the finless porpoise, so the number of our family has now increased to more than 1,000. I strongly believe that our family will keep thriving in the future with the implementation of better environmental protection policies.

In order to ensure the quality of our offspring, prevent intermarriage, and improve our biological gene pool, the staff has introduced to us four new“friends” from Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, while sending four carefully selected finless porpoise from us to the Provincial Hewangmiao Finless Porpoise Reserve in Jianli, and another two to Xijiang Reserve in Anqing, Anhui Province, so as to help improve the genes of the population there. Now, our Swan Island Reserve has become an important nationwide genetic source of finless porpoise.