"Chinese Cat" introduces the knowledge of local cats, saying that the earth is "Meow Star" is not an exaggeration | Reading+

"Chinese Cat"

Editor -in -chief of Lu Zhi

CITIC Publishing Group

Not long ago, the 12th "World Love Tiger Day". As a "big cat", Tiger is the most noticeable type in the "cat family". In fact, there are also "net red kittens" that are popular because of their popularity, as well as little -known cloud cats and jungle cats.

The Chinese Cat Field Protection Alliance, Landscape Nature Protection Center, and Wilderness Xinjiang (Xinjiang Environmental Protection Public Welfare Platform) jointly created a "Chinese Great Cat", which specifically introduced 13 kinds of wild cats in China. They give each "cat" with scientific illustrations, infrared cameras photos, videos, photography works, maps and other picture materials, sharing super -comprehensive images from discovery, research to protection, and telling people and "cats". story.

Clarify the "confused account" distributed in China in China

At the end of 2021, Song Dazhuang, the head of the "Leopard Project" of the Chinese Cat Field Protection Alliance, received an invitation from the Chinese National Geographic Book Edit. It was said that 2022 was the year of the Tiger.

He was a little hesitant. In the Song Dynasty translated the "World Wild Cat Animals", he felt that the content of that book was difficult to surpass; although there were many cats in China, there were too few local research. Seeing Lu Zhi, a professor of protection of biology at Peking University, and the landscape natural protection centers, and the wilderness of the mountains and water, he also joined in.

When you really start doing it, everyone finds that it is not easy. What content can be presented to be worthy of the four words "Chinese Cats"? Too deep content, people do not understand; general and outdated knowledge is not readable.

Since it is about "Chinese Cats", it should be put on the real Chinese native cats. What's more, there are 38 kinds of wild cats in the world in the world. China has 13 of them. It is one of the countries with the largest number of cats in the world.

However, they look at the existing illustrations and literatures. The distribution and quantity of Chinese cats are relatively old. Even if it is a website that reviews the World Nature Protection Alliance, it is a "confused account" in the distribution of cat species in China. With the unremitting efforts of many domestic scientific research units, forestry units and civil institutions in recent years, the distribution and community status of many species have become clearer. Many past fallacy have been proven, and new distribution records have appeared.

They organize it and update China's distribution overview. For example, the news of the leopard found in Tibet Last year, there are more places where there is a leopard; for example, the desert cat has many records in history that cannot be confirmed, saying that the distribution of this cat appears in Xinjiang, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and other provinces. And more and more video survey records now show that this is a cat family living on the eastern edge of the Qinghai -Tibet Plateau. They collected verified distribution data in recent years and evaluated the distribution of this species. On this basis, they amended the distribution of desert cats in China, which will be more accurate than the past distribution records.

In Yunnan, Yunbao will be called "grass leopard"; from Guangdong to Yunnan, the pronunciation of golden cats in the local dialect is called "bīu", which may be the source of the name "Biao". There are also the proportion of marmot of Bangladesh Tiger and Qinghai Sanjiang Source in Tibet. Chinese cat. The writing team believes that only understanding is the beginning of protection.

The tiger is at the top of the food chain to protect it conducive to protecting the entire ecological environment

Leopard Cat in Haiyu Mountain, Beijing. Peking University, Cat League / Picture

The image of "tiger" is engraved into the culture of Asian countries, whether it is vicious, brave, cunning, or sacred. From the snow -capped forests in the northeast of Asia, to the hot wetlands high grass on the South Asian subcontinent, and then to the high mountains of 4,000 meters of the Himalaya mountains, even the humid and hot forests on the Sumatra island are active. Big cat.

But now, three of the nine sub -species of the tiger are extinct, and the remaining six are endangered. Only the Bengal Tiger and the Northeast Tiger barely get rid of the destiny (still under protection). At present, China has confirmed that there are distributed tigers, only the Northeast Tiger and the Bangladesh Tiger in the Northeast.

Why is tiger so important to ecology? Because tigers are the top carnivores on Asia's land, it represents the integrity and health of the forest ecosystem. The survival of the tiger requires a large number of prey and large habitats, which means the protection of the tiger's comprehensive protection of the ecological environment.

For a long time, tigers are regarded as "harmful beasts" in China, and "fighting tigers" is a hero who eliminates harm for the people. In addition, the economic value of tiger bones and tigers, large -scale hunting for tigers Kill a lot of. What is worse is that the suitable habitat of Tiger in China is mostly east of the "Hu Huanyong Line". This area is suitable for agricultural development. The rapid growth of the population has changed the type of land use here, resulting in a large -scale loss of the habitat of the tiger. When encountering humans, the "King of Beasts" can only retreat.

Lu Zhi, a professor of protection of biology at Peking University, introduced that in 2000, he and his students entered the Tibet Moqin investigation and wanted to find the trace of Bangladesh tiger. Earlier, there were tigers who preferred the horses that the villagers were in the forest. The forestry department specially approved the local villagers to hunt the tiger. When they arrived, they found that the tiger's teeth were hung on the neck of the township cadre. That hunt was done by the villagers. More than 10 days after communicating and investigating with Dawa, the old hunter promised at the villagers' conference that he would no longer go up the mountain to hunt, because he realized that the number of wild prey antelope of tigers and tigers was reduced. Hunting, you can encounter an antelope in a day or two, it takes 7 days now. "If there are more antelopes, the situation of tigers eats less livestock.

Unfortunately, at that survey, Lu Zhi failed to see the trace of the tiger. In the past 10 years, despite sporadic reports about tiger traces, no one has seen tigers again. Until 2019, the infrared camera set up by the Kunming Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences captured the two tigers.

Although there are still considerable mountain forests in many parts of China, the main prey of tigers, such as large deer such as sika deer and deer, is very lacking, which means that tigers do not want to return to the wild. Only when the ecological environment is systematically fully repaired, the composition of different levels from different levels of biological communities from plants to large herbivores, and strengthening the research on tiger and breeding group recovery can it be possible to allow tigers to "in China in the future" Return to the hometown. " Nature does not require artificial carving, many times it only needs a little breathing space.

But there are already many good news. For example, in April 2021, a Siberian tiger was captured in Heilongjiang, known as "Wanda Mountain One"; in less than a month, it was put back. Later, it was shot and found that it wandered from Heilongjiang to Jilin, ready to build its own territory.

There is an ecological risk of "撸 cats" casually

There are 13 kinds of wild cats in China. The focus of the public and scientific community is concentrated on large cats and leopards. It is easier to ignore small cats, such as leopard cats, cloud cats and fishing cats. Cats are considered to be one of the least understanding and the most scarce data.

People who like cats like to call cats "cats". In fact, from a scientific perspective, this makes sense. From the Northeast tiger with a weight of more than 300 kilograms to the rust leopard cat with only 1 kg. Without humans, it would be no exaggeration to call the earth "Meow Star".

Leopard cats are a small cat family. Some weigh 20 pounds, and some may be less than two pounds. The body shape is similar to that of a cat, and even slightly smaller. In the British Broadcasting Corporation's documentary "Big Cat", a rust leopard cat had "adhered" the audience, and a lot of love cats cried: "Where is it? I want to raise!"

This is actually a sad thing. The cute appearance of small cats and animals is attracting people. The first reaction that people express their love is to raise "撸", which leads to a large number of wild cats captured to cultivate and sell as pets. threaten.

What you may not know is that "Leopard Cat" is a very important signal: if a place is hunting in one place, then bid farewell to tiger, leopard, wolf, golden cat, yellow throat marten; Leopard cats, even if there are no large carnivorous animals, there are usually many prey favored by large carnivorous animals such as raing antelope, spotted antelope, black sugar, etc., and there is the hope of "taking the leopard home".

Why is Leopard Cat so "God"? Because it is a "Xiaoqiang" in the family of cats, it is strong, non -picky, and strong breeding ability. As long as humans leave such space, it can live. If even a leopard cat can't survive, then other cats must not be kept. It is the "bottom line".

But the problem lies in it "make up", and people do not realize the crisis. Before being adjusted to the national second -level key protection animals in early 2021, for a long time, the protection level of Leopard Cat was only "three" (beneficial or important economy and scientific research value). Almost, no one thinks the leopard cat will extinct.

In the city, the leopard cat will find out, inspect the territory such as green belts, culverts and other places under the road, overpass, and even live in Handong. Researchers also found that the shooting rate of stray cats is relatively low in the place where Leopard cat loves; places where there are fewer leopard cats, the density of stray cats is high. This is a very interesting self -regulation mechanism between species in the ecosystem, which also proves that Leopard Cat as a "bottom line". Its effect is far more than that of the biomass in the area.

(Changjiang Daily reporter Qin Mengting)

【Edit: Wang Yujin】

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