The poster of the 2019 "Taohuayuan Ranger Award" posted in the living room of Cai Zhihong's new house. Photo by Wang Zhenhua
Red Star News reporter Wang Zhenhua Lan Jing
Edited by Pan Li
In addition to the granddaughter's three award certificates, the most conspicuous decoration in the new house that was just built last year is a poster. This was produced by the organizers when Cai Zhihong participated in the "Taohuayuan Ranger Award" award ceremony in 2019. The smaller one and two honorary certificates of "advanced worker" were carefully kept in the cabinet in the back room by him, not easily displayed. After living at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain in Yunnan for 52 years, going to Hong Kong to receive the award was Cai Zhihong's most glorious moment.
Gaoligong Mountain, a key area of global significance for Biodiversity Conservation in China, is famous for its habitat for endemic or rare species such as the white-browed gibbon, the white-tailed rainbow pheasant, the Nujiang golden snub-nosed monkey, the rhododendron of the big tree, and the diantong.
As a ranger for more than 20 years, for up to 8 years, Cai Zhihong was dealing with the white-browed gibbon, a Lisu farmer who had not read a book, known as the "professor" and "living map" of Gaoligong Mountain.
Character sketches
"Uncle Cai" who knows everything about this mountain
"Uncle Cai" is the name of the white-browed gibbon, which is also the first name of Professor Fan Pengfei of Sun Yat-sen University to Cai Zhihong.
In 2009, Fan Pengfei's team established the first field research base for white-browed gibbons in Datang Township, Tengchong, Yunnan. Less than a year later, the gibbons studied were poached, and the team had to choose a second research base, the Gaoligongshan Natural Park in Baoshan. There is only 1 family group and 1 female solitary ape in the natural park, and the gibbon group structure, social behavior and habitat utilization information are very simple, and the team has to choose a new base again.
Prior to this, Fan Pengfei had sent students to gaoligong mountain near the Shatian group of Manghe Village in Lujiang Town, Baoshan City, where Cai Zhihong lived, to look for gibbons. "After a week of monitoring, the students came down and said no, and they didn't hear the cries." Two of Cai Zhihong's colleagues also went in to look for it, but they didn't look for it.
Gaoligong Mountain white-browed gibbon. Photo courtesy of Baoshan Management and Conservation Bureau of Gaoligong mountain national nature reserve
When talking to Fan Pengfei on the phone again, Cai Zhihong said his opinion, Gaoligong mountain white-browed gibbon sometimes does not bark for half a month, sometimes for several days in a row, "when you are happy, it will be called." A few days later, Fan Peng flew to the local area and asked Cai Zhihong to go into the mountains with him to look for gibbons. Cai Zhihong also said his own opinion, he has been looking for a place to find it, and he must listen while walking.
The next morning, after entering the mountain, walking along the mountain recess called the horizontal groove by the locals, near noon, Cai Zhihong saw the leaves of the thorny paulownia wood on the opposite side shaking constantly, "In the forest, I can see a little farther, I told Teacher Fei that I saw." Teacher Fei took out a telescope to look at it, very happy, it was a pair of white-browed gibbons. ”
Cai Zhihong's experience comes from his long career as a ranger.
In 1983, the Yunnan Provincial Government established the Gaoligong Mountain Nature Reserve, which covers the central and southern section of Gaoligong Mountain (Tengchong County, Baoshan City, Longyang District and Lushui County, Nujiang Prefecture). In 1986, the reserve was upgraded to a national level. In 1997, it was accepted into the China Biosphere Reserve by the Chinese Biosphere. The following year, Cai Zhihong became a ranger in the reserve.
In 2011, the Sha Tin Group district under the responsibility of Cai Zhihong was merged into the Baihualing Management and Protection Station. The following year, Fan Pengfei's research team selected the board factory in the baihualing area to set up a field research base for the white-browed gibbon.
The first team to work with the research team was two other rangers, recommended by Cai Zhihong, who felt that he was uneducated and "couldn't do it". What I didn't expect was, "Because I couldn't eat the bitterness in the mountains, after a few days, the two stopped working." Fan Pengfei found Cai Zhihong again.
Since then, Cai Zhihong has begun to cooperate with the research base until 2020.
In May 2018, a new family group of White-browed Gibbons from Mount Gaoligong was discovered locally, as Cai Zhihong and his colleagues discovered during routine surveillance.
Just take a glance to see which road is the passage that the wildlife has walked;
Seeing the footprints left by animals, you can judge the species and volume according to the depth and size of the footprints;
Sex and age are analyzed from the call, and the residual temperature of the ground is used to determine when the animal leaves the nest.
Monitor the frost-backed squirrel, he can find all the tree holes where the squirrel is home;
Monitor the Fischer langur, he can hear the direction of the monkey group moving from a few hundred meters away;
Monitoring the vegetation phenology, he could tell the subtle differences between the six kinds of bamboo in Gaoligong Mountain, and the flowering and fruiting periods of various trees.
With these experiences, Cai Zhihong has become the most senior field guide and the most trusted field partner of the research team.
These experiences are also what Cai Zhihong came out with his feet. Environmental protection volunteers have done a statistic, in 2019, as a ranger of Gaoligong Mountain National Nature Reserve, Cai Zhihong walked 3,000 kilometers in the wild in 300 days.
The eastern slope of the Baoshan section of Gaoligong Mountain. Cai Zhihong was born in the "old village" at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain
The path to growth
From a natural hunter to an excellent ranger
Cai Zhihong's birthplace is 6 kilometers away from the Sha Tin Group of Manghe Village, close to the foot of Gaoligong Mountain.
As a descendant of the Lisu people who can climb mountains, hunt well, and are accustomed to slash-and-burn farming, Cai Zhihong was "born a hunter." Cai Zhihong's four brothers and sisters, "My parents have no money for us to study, and I have never carried a school bag." ”
Grandpa was an old hunter of the Lisu tribe, and when he was young, Cai Zhihong heard him tell the story of fighting with a bear and being bitten by a bear and biting his finger. At a very young age, Cai Zhihong went hunting with the old hunters in the village into Gaoligong Mountain, memorized the hunter's precepts of "head pigs, two bears and three tigers", and witnessed how the 300-pound wild boar crushed the banana tree at once.
The Lisu people call going into the mountains to hunt "hitting the mountains", "People have to have a companion to fight the mountains, I don't need a companion, I can go alone." "As long as there is a gun, a flashlight, and a small pot on his back, Cai Zhihong can go into the mountain, and at night under the rocks, at the foot of the big tree," casually leaned up and slept. ”
His father did not like to hunt, worried that he was in danger, threw away the shotgun, and in a few days Cai Zhihong quietly went to pick it up again. Cai Zhihong has beaten chamois and wild boar in Gaoligong Mountain, and the most common is rock sheep. "It is common to fight birds, bamboo chickens, cold chickens, at night in the bamboo forest, with gunpowder guns, one shot to shoot four or five. There are also white orioles and spotted doves. ”
Cai Hongzhi, who was born in 1970, said that the reason why he often went into the mountains to hunt at that time was mainly because his stomach was not full, and he "ate it when he came back." ”
In the 1970s, slash-and-burn cultivation and widespread thin harvesting were the most typical farming methods in the villages at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain, and they still existed until the early 1990s. Backed by Gaoligong Mountain, Baihualing Village has relied on the supply of Gaoligong Mountain for generations, such as cutting wood, grazing, hunting, beekeeping, digging medicine, and collecting wild vegetables.
"Fishing and touching shrimp, delaying crops." Under the persuasion of his parents, coupled with the arrival of the package in the early 1980s, he was able to eat enough and "cultivate the land and live a good life." In 1998, the reserve recruited rangers, and Cai Zhihong, who was good at climbing mountains and familiar with mountain forests, signed up as a ranger.
In the past, a gun, a flashlight, and a small pot were the equipment of hunter Cai Zhihong, but now a set of camouflage uniforms, a machete that opens the way, and a bag of dry food have become the standard equipment of ranger Cai Zhihong.
After becoming a ranger, Cai Zhihong in turn mobilized people who had previously fallen in love with mountain hunting to "stop going up the mountain.". "In the past, I didn't understand, wild animals are also a life, in other words, you are a wild animal, I am a person, you shoot me, I will also hurt." 」 He told the old hunter that animals never take the initiative to harm our people. "We can't do that."
After contacting the scientific research team, Cai Zhihong learned that due to the serious poaching in the past, coupled with the repeated shrinking of the habitat, there are currently only 150 wild white-browed gibbons left. In January 2017, the international recognition of the white-browed gibbon as an independent and rare species also revealed its living conditions. Mount Gaoligong may be the last habitat of the white-browed gibbon.
In addition to protecting gibbons, since 2011, Cai Zhihong has also participated in the seizure of more than 10 poaching cases, including giant squirrels, impala, short-tailed monkeys, wild boars and other wild animals. In 2019, Cai Zhihong won the "Taohuayuan Ranger Award".
At the foot of Gaoligong Mountain, a notice board leading to the research base. Photo by Wang Zhenhua
Quotes from people
"I'll keep it for the rest of my life until I can't crawl."
At 4 a.m., Cai Zhihong would wait under the tree where gibbons spent the night until the morning light rose. In the course of the day, wherever the gibbon ran, he would chase it, and look for traces of gibbon droppings between dead leaves and dirt.
During the rainy season, gibbon activities will last up to 12 hours, and Cai Zhihong, who insists on monitoring, is watered by rainwater, in order to accurately measure the temperature and light of the canopy, the thermograph deployed on the canopy requires Cai Zhihong to climb more than 20 meters high with his bare hands to read.
"There are indeed many difficulties in tracking the Gaoligong Mountain White-browed Gibbon, after all, it is a wild animal and is very afraid of people; secondly, the Gaoligong Mountain White-browed Gibbon does not go to the ground all its life, basically moving in the trees, it is difficult for us to monitor; and they are agile, they jump in the air, we chase on the ground, and if we are not careful, we will lose it." Cai Zhihong said that in order to be able to continuously track the Gaoligong white-browed gibbon, rangers often stayed in the mountains for days, or even half a month.
When he first became a ranger in 1998, Cai Zhihong was paid 200 yuan a month, and now he is 2100 yuan a month. In the 2019 "Taohuayuan Ranger Award", 10 people won the award, Cai Zhihong was the first to go up to receive the award, after a brief introduction of his identity, Cai Zhihong said that Gaoligongshan is like his mother, "From now on, we must bring colleagues to protect our Gaoligong mountain." ”
Cai Zhihong
"Now when we go up to Mount Gaoligong, as long as we go into the forest, we will either hear the monkeys or the gibbons, and if we don't hear the gibbons, we can hear the cries of the hairy-crowned deer." This makes Cai Zhihong often think of when he was a teenager, "At that time, sitting in the courtyard of my old village, sometimes I would hear the white-browed gibbons of Gaoligong Mountain, and at night I could hear the cries of chamois, bamboo chickens, and mountain partridges behind the house... For many years I couldn't hear the cries. In the past two or three years, I have heard the cry again. In Cai Zhihong's personal feelings, the white-browed gibbon has experienced the development process of "the original from more to less, and later from less to more".
Long-term tracking and monitoring gibbons, Cai Zhihong will even imitate their calls, "'eh-oh-eh' is the call of a single male courtship. 'Whoosh-hoo' is a female ape chirping. ”
Mr. Cai said he didn't want to wait until his grandson grew up and didn't even know what gibbons were. "That would be a pity."
On the winning poster of the "Taohuayuan Ranger Award" produced by the organizers, above the photo of Cai Zhihong, who is wearing a camouflage patrol suit, is a sentence he has said: "I will keep until I can't climb in this life."
·Special Planner of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference·
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