It's no exaggeration at all. Bai Yu just walked around this rocky forest and found at least ten flower lobsters. The number of them was so large that they were densely packed.

Although the flower lobster is classified as a Class II protected animal, its protection is due to the decline in its population.

However, when it comes to protecting animals, you have to consider the location. The number of flower lobsters will naturally vary from place to place.

Where the lobster is suitable for survival, its population will certainly be large, just like how the giant panda is most numerous in Sichuan.

Besides Sichuan, giant pandas can also be found in the mountains of Guizhou and the Qinling Mountains, although the number of giant pandas in the latter two places is particularly small.

Sichuan has a huge number of giant pandas, so much so that it's been circulating online that almost every person in Sichuan owns a giant panda.

While this statement may be a bit of an exaggeration, it is enough to illustrate that protecting habitats suitable for certain organisms is highly beneficial for their recovery.

This is because giant pandas produce very few cubs per litter, and their survival rate is not high. Otherwise, if it were any other species, given the way our country protects giant pandas, they would have already become overpopulated.

Let's get back to the flower lobster. Flower lobsters are oviparous, and although their survival rate isn't very high, they can still lay many offspring at once.

Flower lobsters lay hundreds to thousands of eggs each time. Even if the survival rate of ornate lobsters is only one in ten, or one in twenty, their population can still increase dozens of times over in a year.

Not to mention that the beach where Bai Yu and his group lived was located in an inner bay, where there were not many large sea fish, and there were not many creatures that could pose a threat to the flower lobsters on the shore.

As a result, in just two and a half years, the lobster population here has become rampant.

Through conversations with his second uncle and cousin, Bai Yu also learned that in the past two and a half years, many villagers had secretly caught flower lobsters.

Of course, they catch lobsters not to sell, but to take home and eat themselves.

This is only because their village has managed to control the population of flower lobsters to some extent; otherwise, there would be even more flower lobsters here.

This kind of thing is common knowledge in the small fishing village, but it's an unspoken secret that all the villagers keep.

The reason Bai Yu only found out today is that he has been quite busy these past two years, either traveling all over the world to participate in competitions or going out to sea to fish.

Secondly, his family assumed he knew about it, so no one told him, leading to this misunderstanding.

To be honest, Bai Yu was a little stunned when he heard the news, because he really didn't expect that people in his village would dare to eat a second-class protected animal, especially his own family members.

This is outrageous. Although flower lobsters are somewhat overabundant here, they are still a level two lobster. Shouldn't we at least show some respect for their status?

However, if you asked Bai Yu to say it, he definitely couldn't. Many people in the village are his elders, so how could he say it?

Besides, even if he did speak up, people might not listen to him, so he should just let it go and focus on disciplining his own family members in the future.

As for reporting it, that's even more impossible, because his family members, his parents, Li Xue and Bai Yue, were among those who ate the flower lobsters. Even Bai Yu himself might have eaten them without his knowledge.

In this situation, how can you expect him to report it? To betray his own family for the greater good?

Impossible, Bai Yu couldn't do that.

The best solution is to go to the fisheries administration and report the situation in the small fishing village to their superiors, and hopefully apply for some legal fishing quotas.

Otherwise, if we let the lobsters proliferate here, that's really not a good solution. No matter what kind of creature it is, an overpopulation will have an impact on the natural ecosystem.

Take wild boars for example. They used to be protected animals, meaning they weren't allowed to hunt or eat them. But now, bounty hunters have emerged, and you can believe there are subsidies for hunting wild boars.

So, in our country, we have measures to protect endangered species, but we also have strong measures to deal with species that are overpopulated.

Different methods are used in different situations, and by combining the two, we can maintain the ecological balance of our home.

In this situation, Bai Yu did not stop his cousin from catching lobsters, but told him to catch fewer, and to take the ones he caught back to the village to distribute, and preferably to give a few to the village chief's family as well.

Please don't misunderstand, Bai Yu wasn't asking his cousin to bribe the village chief with lobsters, he was just sharing the harvest.

After all, Bai Yu planned to wait until dawn, then go with the village chief to the fishery administration office to have someone assess their situation and try to get this matter resolved before the end of the year.

What? You're saying today is already Lunar New Year's Eve, and the fishery administration doesn't get a holiday?

Even though it's a holiday, official departments still have staff on duty, not to mention that Bai Yu's company, being a fishing company, is subject to the supervision of the fishery administration department.

So it's reasonable that Bai Yu and his group have the phone numbers of the fishery administration departments, right? They have the county and city numbers, and Bai Yu even has the provincial department's number.

It wasn't the head of the provincial department, but rather a call from one of the department's directors.

Even so, that would be enough. As long as the situation here is indeed real, and the lobsters have really become an overpopulation, then they can apply for a portion of the fishing quotas for their village.

Just like the grouper, even though wild grouper is protected, you can still fish for grouper if you have a fishing license.

This ensures protection without over-protection.

Of course, while Bai Yu wouldn't catch those flower lobsters, the little green lobsters weren't so lucky.

Anything that Bai Yu saw would be caught in his grasp, and he caught it one after another, bringing the little green dragons into his bucket.

In no time, Bai Yu's bucket contained six small green lobsters, a pile of conch shells, and two abalone.

As for crabs and such, Bai Yu and the others caught quite a few, but they weren't with Bai Yu; instead, he put them all into the buckets belonging to Li Xue and the other two.

Crabs are naturally aggressive, so let them stay together. If they fight, it'll be a battle between their own groups.

Before they knew it, they had wandered into a deeper area and were getting closer and closer to the waves. With the sea breeze blowing, a lot of water splashed on them.

"Xiaoyu, you two, don't get too close to the waves. Don't let a wave come and sweep you into the sea."

Just as Bai Yu and Li Xue were concentrating on catching seafood, their second uncle's voice came over.

It was precisely because of this that Bai Yu realized they had gone quite far, and her second uncle and cousin were already quite a distance away.

...