Bohai Sea, Liaodong Bay, a small island is isolated from the mainland. Because there are nearly 20,000 venomous vipers living on the island, it is called Snake Island
The island has a unique snake species in the world-Snake Island Viper
Migratory birds are one of the main food sources of snake island vipers. Snake Island Agkistrodon is very toxic. When it preys on birds, it injects snake venom into its body and kills the prey in about 5 minutes.
In the area of Snake Island Lao Tieshan, the tragedy of humans and snake birds competing for space and earth has been staged for decades.
"Snake Watcher" on Snake Island, dancing with snakes for 40 years
Our reporters Yu Li, Cai Yongjun, Cui Shihao
In the Bohai Sea, Liaodong Bay, there are endless ships under the blue water and blue sky. Who could have imagined that this tens of thousands of miles of waves used to be a lush plain continent. For thousands of years, a small island was isolated from the mainland during the ebb and flow of the tide. Because there are nearly 20,000 highly poisonous vipers on the island, it is called the Snake Island.
Snake Island is small, with an area of about 1 square kilometer, about 7 nautical miles from the nearest land. The reporter boarded the "Snake Island" law enforcement monitoring boat. As soon as the ship abducted out of the port, he could vaguely see the whole picture of Snake Island through a layer of sea fog like white gauze. From a distance, the forested Snake Island looks like a gray-green beret buttoned on the sea. The "Snake Island" drove for 30 minutes, passing through the sea fog, the "beret" became bigger and bigger, and the color changed from gray-green to bright green.
On this independent island, there is a unique snake species in the world-Snake Island Viper. For tens of thousands of years, the struggle between snakes and birds on this small island has never stopped. Until human civilization set foot on the island, the island has maintained a delicate ecological balance. Especially after the Japanese army landed on Snake Island in 1931, humans began to cause damage to the ecology on Snake Island, killing snakes, hunting snakes, fires... Various man-made disasters and natural disasters made the number of vipers on Snake Island vary from Ten thousand fell to less than ten thousand.
"It wasn't until 1980 that we realized we needed to protect these species and established a reserve." Sun Lixin, the former director of the Laotieshan National Nature Reserve Administration, Snake Island, Liaoning Province, told reporters, "I worked here soon after the establishment of the reserve. Someone jokingly called me the owner of Snake Island Island." After dancing with snakes for 40 years, Sun Lixin and a group of "snake guards" witnessed the number of snake island vipers from small to large.
Man and snake bird compete
Thousands of years ago, Snake Island was not an island, and there were not only snakes on the island. At that time, the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea were still plains, and Shandong and Liaoning were not across the sea, but the Himalayan orogenic movement changed everything.
Traces of plate fracture can still be seen around Snake Island. The sky collapsed and the sea poured into the Bohai Sea region, dividing the Liaodong Peninsula from the Shandong Peninsula, and at the same time turning a small mountain on the Bohai Plain into the current snake island.
The earthquake almost wiped out all animals on the island. Slowly, the only birds and beasts that can be seen on the island are vipers and migratory birds that are good at starving.
The impact of human civilization on Snake Island can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty.
Bird-fighting, bird-eating, and bird-fighting are customs passed down from generation to generation in the Lao Tieshan area. The local government in the Qing Dynasty also recruited hunters specializing in bird hunting in the Laotieshan area. The "Shen Gu" written by Yang Tonggui of the Qing Dynasty recorded that "there are dozens of carving factories in Lushunkou of Jinzhou Hall, which were used by the capital to prepare feathers and arrows."
On the migration route of migratory birds, the Laotieshan area of Dalian Snake Island is their only place. The migratory birds traveling south need to rest on the southernmost tip of the Liaodong Peninsula before crossing the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea to reach Shandong. Migratory birds are one of the main food sources of Snake Island Agkistrodon, "It can be said that the number of migratory birds directly affects the number of Snake Island Agkistrodon, which is a biological chain." Sun Lixin said.
Professor Zhao Ermi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the name of the snake island viper, once pointed out that the existence of Lao Tieshan is a prerequisite for the existence of the snake island. If the habitat of birds decreases or disappears, there will be fewer or no birds. Without birds, snakes cannot survive without a source of food. When the State Council merged Lao Tieshan and Snake Island to establish a protected area, this was the intention.
The reporter boarded the Snake Island and saw that the trees on both sides of the plank road were very dense, and the gray skin of the viper made it impossible to distinguish the branches and the snakes from a distance. Once you are accidentally bitten, it will be life-threatening if you do not deal with it in time.
Snake Island Agkistrodon is very toxic. When it preys on birds, it injects snake venom into its body and kills the prey in about 5 minutes. Wang Xiaoping, head of the scientific research department of the Laotieshan National Nature Reserve Administration, Snake Island, Liaoning Province, said: "Snake Island Viper is highly toxic, but also considered to have medicinal value." Wang Xiaoping said the snake island Viper is close to it. Reasons for repeated man-made disasters over the past century.
"People like to use snakes for soaking wine and curing diseases. In addition, before the establishment of the reserve, the management is not standardized. When natural disasters such as fires and mudslides occur, the number of viper populations will also be destroyed." Wang Xiaoping said.
In this area of Snake Island Lao Tieshan, the tragedy of humans and snake birds competing for space and earth has been staged for decades.
According to records, in 1937, the Japanese caught more than 7,000 snakes and shipped them to Taiwan, China, and sold them as snake wine.
In 1946, in order to build a shooting range, the Soviet army sent troops to the island to eliminate snakes and kill some vipers.
In June 1958, a fire broke out on Snake Island. The fire lasted for 7 days before it was completely extinguished. Afterwards, the Leprosy Prevention and Control Institute of Luda City found more than 2,000 dead or injured vipers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Snake Island was unmanaged, and the phenomenon of excessive hunting and business of snake wine was very serious.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the results of domestic investigations on the number of viper populations on the Snake Island have all been within the range of 10,000 to 50,000. After undergoing several damages, in 1982, the Liaoning Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau organized a 20-person expedition to Snake Island to investigate Snake Island in the spring and autumn using the flag recapture method. It is estimated that the population of Snake Island Agkistrodon is about 9,000, which is the lowest in history. Protecting snake island vipers is imminent.
Next, there is a story of "snake guards" who have danced with snakes for 40 years.
Wang Xiaoping, Section Chief of Scientific Research Section of Laotieshan National Nature Reserve Administration, Snake Island, Liaoning, introduced the viper.
The "snake-keeper" who dances with the snake
"Are you afraid?" This is the most frequently asked sentence among the "snake guards" on Snake Island.
Sun Lixin did not answer directly, telling reporters: “If you bite your finger by a snake, you will usually swell from your finger to your palm and arm. If you don’t get treatment in time, the toxin will follow the blood to the heart and die.” Sun Lixin said first. The next time he went to the island, he was wearing protective clothing, tied with thick leggings, and wearing welding gloves. He was not fully armed. He only dared to go to work with a stick. "That was the first time I went to the island. Can you be afraid? "
"I still remember the first time that Brother Sun took me to the island. I saw snakes squirming in the dense grass, and my scalp was numb." Wang Xiaoping said that almost every person who landed on the island had such an unforgettable "first time." .
Carrying photographic equipment on their backs, the reporter walked hard on the steep plank road on Snake Island. When it was noon, the sea fog had cleared, and the poisonous sun was roasting on the back, causing the water in the body to evaporate quickly. The eyebrows could no longer stop the sweat from attacking the eyes. Because of the equipment in hand, the reporter who couldn't get rid of it allowed the sweat to fall into the eye sockets, stinging hot, and not torturing. Every step was a test. This road, the "snake watchers" have to walk again every day.
"Look, here's one." Before Wang Xiaoping finished his words, the reporters became vigilant and looked at where Wang Xiaoping pointed. As the earthy gray viper is very similar in color to the branch, it hasn't been seen after staring for a long time.
When people are engrossed, their spirits are naturally highly nervous. Knowing that there are snakes but not seeing them, the reporter's hair roots stand up, and the surrounding environment will become extremely sensitive even if there is a slight movement in the environment.
"Where is the snake?" The reporter was thinking like this, feeling a faint coolness from the back of his neck.
"What?!" The tension and panic that had just accumulated burst out in an instant. Driven by the desire to survive, the reporter was so frightened that he yelled and jumped away.
"You scared yourself!" All the fellows laughed, "Except for the branches behind you, there are leaves."
Wang Xiaoping said that few people are naturally not afraid of snakes, "but the snake island viper is actually quite docile, because it is rarely threatened by natural enemies here. If you don't mess with it, it will not actively bite you." Wang Xiaoping caught a snake from a branch with snake pliers. He gently clamped the snake's mouth with his thumb and index finger, and started popular science.
"You see that there are two cheek pits on the snake's head. It is like the thermal imager we invented. It can distinguish changes of one thousandth of a degree Celsius within one tenth of a second, and can also confirm the distance and distance of the exothermic object. Size. Snakes have poor eyesight and hearing, and they rely on this to prey." Wang Xiaoping said.
Only when migratory birds pass through Snake Island in summer and autumn each year, the vipers can "eat food", so the snake island vipers are "lazy" than most snakes. Not only hibernation, but also summer sleep. In order to save energy, so that they can live to the next migratory bird migration season.
As the snake island agkistrodon feeds on birds for a living, the sharp beak often scratches the snake's beak when eating, so the most common disease of the snake island agkistrodon is stomatitis. Snakes with inflamed mouths cannot open their mouths and have to wait to die. The "snake guards" will now break the snake's mouth and apply purple potion to treat them.
"It's not convenient to wear gloves for this kind of work. The snake's mouth is too small and it can't be operated with a layer of gloves." Sun Lixin was bitten more than ten times before and after, and now he has developed antibodies. "Later I bite me again. It's all right, I dare to go to the island barefoot in slippers."
Every "snake-keeper" always has a calmness that is difficult for outsiders to understand when facing a poisonous snake. Wang Xiaoping's experience told reporters that this calmness was tortured.
"I keep telling myself that I can't be bitten by a snake anymore in my life. It's too much to suffer." Wang Xiaoping told reporters his first experience of being tortured by snake venom.
"At first it was like a needle stick, and it didn't feel much. When I arrived at the hospital two hours later, my arm gradually swelled like inflated, and finally reached the waist." Wang Xiaoping said, "There has never been more pain than this. The pain of cutting off the arm. Snake venom acts on the blood circulatory system. The capillaries rupture and the body fluid gradually flows out and gathers under the skin as if it is breaking the skin. It is a swollen, swollen, and suffocated pain."
The doctor pierced Wang Xiaoping's fingers with a needle to perform puncture and bleeding. The moment it went down, blood sprayed out half a meter away, "I felt very comfortable at that moment." After 17 days in the hospital, Wang Xiaoping was discharged and shed his skin several times. Because blood vesicles blocked the fingertip nerves and failed to clear them in time, Wang Xiaoping's bitten finger is still numb.
In the tenth year after being bitten, Wang Xiaoping made dumplings to celebrate that he had not been bitten again in the past ten years.
Snake Island Viper. Photo by our reporter Long Lei
"No one actually forces you to work on the island"
From fear of snakes to love of snakes, the hard work of the snake guards over the past 40 years is beyond words. Sun Lixin, who retired last year, had a signature on his personal social media account that read "I love Snake Island and never left." There are too many stories behind this statement.
In 1982, the number of Vipers on Snake Island dropped to a record low, and the protected area implemented closed management on Snake Island and its adjacent waters. In order to prevent poaching, it is convenient to observe and study the habits of vipers, and to protect the ecological environment of the snake island. Snake guards live on the island all year round. "One year I spent a total of more than 240 days on the island." Sun Lixin spent two-thirds of that year on the island.
Snake Island Vipers are resistant to hunger and thirst. They can skip meals for a long time, but they can easily die without drinking water. There is no fresh water on the island, and vipers live by drinking rain or dew. In 1989, the Snake Island had dripped water for three months, and more than 10,000 vipers were dying. Snake watchers bought more than 800 water basins and used patrol boats to travel back and forth between Snake Island and the mainland. When the water basin was in place, almost all snakes on the island went out to drink water. The magnificence of the scene made Sun Lixin unforgettable.
"It's not just snakes that can't drink water, sometimes we can't drink water." When the sea was too strong for supply and transportation, the snake watchers could only endure without fresh water. "One time I couldn't stand it anymore with sea water. Cooking, it's salty and astringent, it's terrible."
After 800 basins of water, the reserve dug a well on the island and repaired several reservoirs. Since then, draught is no longer a problem.
From the small sampan to the monitoring ship with hundreds of horsepower now, from sleeping at night you can see the leaky iron house where snakes break in to the three-story single-family building today. In the past 40 years, the snake guards have experienced five generations of boats and five generations of houses, and their working environment has been significantly improved. "The conditions are much stronger than before. Life on the island in the 1980s was too lonely." Sun Lixin said that the radio broadcasted at night. Theatrical shows were their only entertainment at the time.
"No one actually forces you to work on the island. You can do research or mess around, but Brother Sun has set us a good example." Wang Xiaoping said, everyone here is loved by Sun Lixin. I am convinced that if I fell in love with this line, I also fell in love with Snake Island and the snake. With the joint efforts of Snake Island researchers, the reserve has hosted and participated in 22 related research projects over the past 40 years, and published nearly 100 Chinese and English papers. The population of Snake Island Viper has been stable at about 20,000 in the past decade.
Richard Shine, a professor at the University of Sydney, once boarded Snake Island with Sun Lixin. He said that such a closed and small place can sustain such a large number of predators is very magical, "Such a way of predation How to evolve independently has raised many questions about the evolution process, making the island a natural laboratory, helping us understand the formation process of the ecological interaction between predator and prey...in public education, ecotourism, and In terms of scientific research and international cooperation, Snake Island has great potential value."
"There is still a quantitative survey in the reserve this year, and it is expected that all work will be completed in the fall." Although he has retired, Sun Lixin participated in the survey that began in May this year. This "veteran" has marked more than two hundred snakes in the current investigation work, and this result ranks first in the entire reserve.
In his parting speech when he retired, Sun Lixin wrote: "For 38 years, I have witnessed and experienced the construction and development of China’s nature protection industry. I have devoted myself and devoted myself to the development of the country’s nature protection undertakings. I am deeply gratified for the country I love deeply, the ecological civilization cause I love deeply..." The snake guards love deeply, and each word is strong.
Snake Island, where to go?
Snake Island Laotieshan is a protected area with a core area of 3565 hectares. Today, there are only 26 employees in the Laotieshan National Nature Reserve Administration of Snake Island. How to manage such a large area and so many people?
In order to protect snakes and migratory birds from being hunted down, outsiders are strictly prohibited from entering the core area of the nature reserve. Because the area of the reserve is too large, it is not enough for the staff to perform multiple jobs alone. All of them protect both snakes and birds. "We are also worrying about the fact that there is not enough manpower, and sometimes we have to rely on volunteers." said Lin Xizhen, director of the Lao Tieshan National Nature Reserve Administration, Shedao Island, Liaoning Province.
Borrowing people is not a long-term solution. In order to solve this dilemma, the snake guards have made some imaginations about the future of the Snake Island Lao Tieshan Nature Reserve—the establishment of a digital nature reserve.
"In terms of management, scientific research, and publicity and education, we have proposed the idea of digitizing the reserve." Lin Xizhen said, intending to build a digital monitoring and management system. By setting up unmanned checkpoints at intersections, external personnel who want to enter the reserve will be treated Control. If a checkpoint is set up, two staff members will be stationed there and a house will be built at the same time, which is more costly and manpower.
"At the same time, we have also studied the digital scientific research system. Through the infrared camera to observe and study the living habits of the snake island viper. The software of the system is currently under development and is expected to be completed next year." Lin Xizhen said.
"The other aspect is digital education. We have a Snake Island Museum in our reserve, but because it was built earlier, the facilities in the museum are very old, which is not conducive to attracting young people to watch. Through the renovation of the museum, the use of more advanced 3D Video, sound, light, and multimedia technologies allow visitors to have a better viewing experience, thereby expanding the influence of the Snake Island Lao Tieshan Reserve and making the concept of protecting birds and snakes more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.” Lin Xizhen said that the museum is only one aspect of digital education. , Setting up LED screens in several villages with a tradition of bird catching and playing bird-loving promotional videos is also one of the content of digital education.
Lin Xizhen said: "The role of publicity and education cannot be underestimated. The Lao Tieshan area has the custom of catching birds and eating birds, which has reversed people's perceptions. To a certain extent, it is a once-and-for-all thing for the reserve."
Fighting with snake-thief and birdcatcher, and even more so with the idea of indiscriminate hunting and destruction of the ecological environment. This drama between people, snakes, and birds has yet to come to an end.