China News Service, Zaozhuang, December 27 (Reporter Sha Jianlong) The reporter learned from the Zaozhuang Municipal People's Government on the 27th that in recent years, the city has continued to improve the quality of the ecological environment and promote the continuous enrichment of biodiversity.

Since August this year, the city has launched a survey of biodiversity covering the entire region, and discovered for the first time a globally critically endangered bird, the blue-headed pochard (Aythya baeri), as well as a variety of national key protected wild animals.

　　The pochard is listed as a "critically endangered (CR)" species by the "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species", which is the highest level of threat to wild populations in the IUCN Red List of Species. There are more than a thousand in stock.

In February 2021, China listed the pochard as a first-class national key protected wild animal.

Birds rest in the wetlands.

Photo courtesy of Zaozhuang Propaganda Department

　　According to Shen Jingxu, a bird investigator of the Biodiversity Investigation Team of the Shandong Provincial Academy of Environmental Sciences, he discovered this blue-headed pochard while observing in Longtan Park, Xuecheng District, Zaozhuang City. This discovery is the first time that Zaozhuang City observed a national first-class Protect birds.

"The pochard is a migratory bird. It flies to the south for the winter in November every year, and flies back to the north to breed and brood in mid-March of the following year; it begins to migrate to southern my country and other places in mid-October, and a few are as late as early November. Winter in the south."

　　Shen Jingxu said that some citizens have seen 6 or 7 blue-headed pochards playing in the water of Longtan Park in Xuecheng, indicating that Zaozhuang is a transit point for the southward migration route of this group of blue-headed pochards. The group will choose to stay here."

　　As the birthplace of the pochard in Zaozhuang, Xuecheng District has continuously carried out wetland ecological protection and restoration work in recent years, planting more than 100,000 wetland plants, providing a strong guarantee for the habitat of wild animals.

Since the beginning of this year, the area has rescued or rescued 45 injured or lost wild animals, including 3 national first-class wild animals, 15 second-class wild animals, and 27 other provincial key animals.

　　Since August 2022, the Zaozhuang Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment has entrusted relevant departments to conduct biodiversity surveys and assessments in the city, conduct field surveys on ecosystems, vascular plants, birds, etc., and identify and catalog species.

Among them, the investigation of the autumn migration period of birds has been completed so far. A total of 58 transects and 31 sampling points have been investigated. 16 orders, 39 families, 71 genera, and 101 species of birds have been investigated. Black-winged kites, kestrels, red-flanked white-eyes, Japanese sparrow hawks, red-footed falcons, sparrow hawks, eagle owls and other national key protected wild animals were found.

In recent years, Zaozhuang's ecological environment has continued to improve.

Photo courtesy of Zaozhuang Propaganda Department

　　Statistics show that in 2021, Zaozhuang's CO, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 will all improve year-on-year, and the proportion of good days will increase by 2.4 percentage points; 2 of the 7 nationally controlled sections will meet the surface water Class II standard, and 5 will meet the surface water III standard. The quality of the water body has been maintained at 100% for many years; the overall quality of the soil environment is stable, and the safe storage rate of waste radioactive sources has been maintained at 100%.

Good environmental quality promotes continuous improvement of local biodiversity.

(use up)