(Question from East and West) Zhu Baoguang: What is the international reference significance of the Chinese experience artificially recruited by the Oriental White Stork?
China News Service, Harbin, October 15th, title: What is the international reference significance of the Chinese experience artificially recruited by the Oriental White Stork?
——Interview with Zhu Baoguang, an expert on artificial recruitment of the Chinese Oriental White Stork
China News Agency reporter Wang Nina
Recently, a Sino-Russian online conference on the global reproduction and protection of the internationally endangered Eastern white stork is being prepared. The main venue is at the Research Center for Ecological Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The reproduction and protection of stork.
As the main breeding grounds for the two largest oriental white storks in the world, China and Russia have similarities and differences in the breeding and protection of the oriental white stork.
In this regard, Zhu Baoguang, an expert on artificial recruitment of the Chinese Oriental White Stork, accepted an exclusive interview with the China News Agency’s “Questions on East and West” column. He will share his practice and experience in the reproduction and protection of the Oriental White Stork, and provide Chinese experience for the restoration and increase of the global Oriental White Stork population.
Data map: Oriental white stork in an artificial nest.
Photo courtesy of Heilongjiang Honghe National Nature Reserve
What is the current status of the global oriental white stork population?
For more than 20 years, Zhu Baoguang, who has mainly researched the artificial breeding and protection of the eastern white stork habitat, said that the eastern white stork is a first-class protected animal in China and an internationally endangered bird.
At present, the two main breeding areas of the Oriental White Stork in the world are southeastern Siberia in the Russian Far East, Blagoveshchensk in the west, and Xingkai Lake in the south. The breeding areas in China are the Heilongjiang Sanjiang Plain and the Nenjiang River. Plain area.
Zhu Baoguang said that in the last century, the number of oriental white storks in the world was about 3,000, and after these years of protection, the number of oriental white storks has been increasing.
According to the latest survey data from the National Bird Ring Logging Center of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, so far, the global population of oriental white stork should be around 8,500 to 9,000, which is three times that of five years ago.
The increase in the population of the Oriental White Stork reflects that China has achieved positive results in the protection of this internationally endangered bird over the past ten years.
In recent decades, Chinese ornithologists and wildlife protection workers have carried out a lot of research and protection work on the oriental white stork. The government has also established relevant laws and regulations for the protection of the oriental white stork in China. Many protected areas to protect the environment where storks live.
Data map: The baby stork was born in an artificial nest.
Provided by Heilongjiang Naoli River National Nature Reserve
Differences in the natural environment between China and Russia lead to different protection strategies
The Oriental White Stork mainly inhabits open and remote plains, grasslands and marshes during the breeding period, especially rivers, lakes, ponds where sparse trees grow, and on the banks of water channels and marshes. Sometimes it also inhabits rice with trees. Tanabe.
For many years, Zhu Baoguang has communicated and exchanged visits with the protected areas of the Russian Eastern White Stork, and is very familiar with the natural environment of the Russian protected areas.
He said that the nature reserves in the Russian Far East are vast and sparsely populated, and there are many tall trees. Before 2010, the eastern white stork in this area mainly reproduced in natural nests and on transmission towers, without artificial intervention. Nest work.
In contrast, the natural environment in which the oriental white stork inhabits in China is very different from that in Russia.
Zhu Baoguang said that before the Sanjiang Plain in China was developed, the number of Oriental white storks breeding in this area was large, with more than 1,000 pairs.
However, with the development of agriculture and the development of society, the protection of the Oriental White Stork is facing challenges. Due to the increasing human activities such as land reclamation, burning, overgrazing and cutting of reeds, the natural environment of the Oriental White Stork’s habitat has been destroyed and the population number Drastically reduced.
Chinese bird experts and wildlife conservation workers have found that the Oriental White Stork is large in size, with an adult bird being more than 1 meter in length. It is difficult to find the nest during breeding, which affects the reproduction number of the Oriental White Stork to a certain extent.
As a result, artificial recruitment has become an effective measure to increase the number of Oriental white stork species.
Data map: Oriental white stork in Shulanshahe Reservoir.
Photo by Zhang Xiaomei
The "Honghe Model" Artificially Attracted by Oriental White Storks
According to Zhu Baoguang, the breeding period of the Oriental White Stork population is from April to June, and from early March to mid-March each year, as migratory birds arrive in the Sanjiang Plain from southern China as a wintering ground, and begin to disperse in pairs into the breeding grounds in late March.
In order to restore the oriental white stork population, in the 1980s, Chinese scientists began to try to use artificial nests to artificially attract the eastern white stork.
Since 1993, the Honghe National Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang has carried out the artificial recruitment of Oriental White Storks and achieved great success. In 2004, it began to erect a tripod artificial nest and achieved success.
In 2021, there should be more than 300 pairs of Oriental white stork breeding in the Sanjiang Plain every year, which will become the breeding center of the Chinese Oriental white stork.
The breeding population of Oriental White Storks in Heilongjiang Province this year is at least 1,000.
On August 14 this year, the Honghe National Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang issued the "Scientific Investigation Report on Oriental White Storks (2021)", stating that in 28 years, the reserve had artificially built 289 artificial nests and bred 1,748 Oriental White Storks. Storks have greatly increased the number of this internationally endangered bird species.
The reserve artificially attracted the Oriental White Stork to create a "Honghe Sample" with Chinese experience.
Data map: On July 21, the Oriental White Stork, a national first-class protected animal, played and foraged in the Chihu Wetland of Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province.
Photo by Wei Dongsheng
China and Russia join forces to protect the "Oriental White Stork" species
In China, there are two main migration routes for the Oriental White Stork. One is the Oriental White Stork that breeds in Russia, enters the Songnen Plain, and gathers with the Oriental White Stork that breeds here, along the Songnen Plain and passing through Momoge, Jilin Province. Xianghai, along the Liaohe River Basin, moved south through Shuangtaihezi, Beidaihe, Hebei, and Tianjin to reach Poyang Lake in Jiangxi for wintering.
The other is the eastern white stork that breeds in the Far East of Russia and the Sanjiang Plain. They gather in the Sanjiang Plain and then cross the Changbai Mountains to reach the Liaodong Peninsula. Then they merge with the eastern white stork migrating from the Songnen Plain and migrate south along the Bohai Bay. Lakes in Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and other provinces are overwintering.
The Russian Far East conducts an endangered species survey every five years, including the population survey of the Oriental White Stork. This is a survey supported by the Russian Far East Office of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Zhu Baoguang said that in 2005, Russia’s Xing’ansky Reserve and the Honghe National Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang began to visit each other. It was found that the natural nests were unevenly distributed, which affected the reproduction and habitat of the Oriental White Stork. China’s artificial introduction of Oriental White The method of stork is very beneficial to the population protection of the oriental white stork, and it can be attracted to more suitable protected areas for reproduction and avoid human interference.
After 2010, the Xing’ansky Reserve in the Amur Region of the Russian Far East began to learn the techniques of artificial nesting and attracting of Oriental White Storks from the Honghe National Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang, China.
From 2009 to 2019, under the framework of the Sino-Russian Prime Ministers’ Meeting Mechanism, China and Russia carried out international cooperation across borders. The Chinese Oriental White Stork manually recruited experts to the Russian Far East every year, mainly in the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and Haba. In the border regions and Primorye Territories, the guidance of artificial nesting has played a positive role in the protection of the eastern white stork population.
At present, the artificial attracting technology of oriental white stork has been promoted to other protected areas in the Russian Far East. They use the abundant local wood to build wooden nests to guide the oriental white stork to a more suitable area for habitation and reproduction. China helps guide the construction There are at least one or two hundred artificial nests, and they have also built themselves in many protected areas.
Zhu Baoguang said that the Oriental White Stork population has increased in recent years, but it is still an internationally endangered bird, and its sustainable development still requires more international attention.
(over)
About the interviewee:
Zhu Baoguang, Chief of the Scientific Research Section of the Administration of Honghe National Nature Reserve, Heilongjiang, has been committed to research and foreign cooperation in artificial recruitment of Oriental White Storks, artificial breeding of endangered species, wildlife rescue, specimen making, bird ring logging, etc. He has edited "Chinese Oriental White Stork Conservation Research", "Beautiful Sanjiang Wetland" and other works, participated in the compilation of "Honghe Nature Reserve Biodiversity", "Sanjiang Plain Wetland Biodiversity Change and Sustainable Utilization" "And other works.