Chapter 128 Qinling Giant Panda (XIV)
In recent years, with global warming, the summer temperature in the middle section of the southern slope of the Qinling Mountains has been getting higher and higher, and local droughts have occurred for several days.
The wild giant pandas living here follow the survival habits passed down from generation to generation. Before the arrival of midsummer, they climb to an altitude of about 3,000 meters to escape the heat.
As usual, the staff of the conservation team disguised themselves as upright deer and patrolled the mountains to ensure that the mountain cats were properly settled and spent the dry season smoothly.
As midsummer approaches, most of the wild giant pandas in the middle section of the Qinling Mountains have basically found suitable habitats.
The remaining few sub-adult pandas, who have just left their mothers and are relatively independent, have low competitiveness, and do not have enough survival experience. They either cannot find a suitable habitat or are afraid of encountering predators and are reluctant to venture into the mountains.
Seeing that the survival of giant pandas in the wild was not affected, the staff chose to watch and record quietly, and did not rashly interfere with the pandas' normal behavior.
Until the sub-adult pandas climbed up the mountain one after another, and only two cubs and one little cub were left in the low-altitude area, the patrolling upright deer began to get anxious and couldn't help but worry about the three of them.
"250, when are you going to go up the mountain?"
"Qinling Mountain Tyrant, haven't you found a place you like yet?"
Compared to most sub-adult pandas, the two cubs left their mother too early.
Ziwei was lucky enough to stay with her mother until she was nearly 18 months old.
250 is now 15 and a half months old, and is not yet at the stage where he can leave home and become independent.
Normally, pandas will leave their mothers when they are 18 months old.
Some mama's boys will even stay with their mother until they are about two years old.
It would have been fine if Sesame Tangyuan was just young, but he also had a little bear with him who was only three months old, which made the staff worry a lot.
But the mother and son were full of life, doing well in the Qinling Mountains, and looked like they did not need any help at all.
No matter how hard the conservation team tries, they decide to wait and see for the sake of the size of the Qinling panda population.
When we found large areas of bamboos blooming at low altitudes, the staff members were all on high alert:
Oops!
The bamboo in the territory blossomed and died, making it harder for the three bears to find food.
Bears are definitely the big eaters in nature. Their stomach capacity is amazing and they never seem to be full.
Wild pandas are active and naturally have bigger appetites than captive pandas. Some foodie bears can easily eat 70 to 80 kilograms of bamboo every day.
Currently, Ziwei and 250 are not yet adults, but Qinling Mountain Overlord’s belly is comparable to a black hole in the universe.
Except for sleeping, the little bear is either eating or on the way to find food. The little bear has never been seen to be full.
The staff looked at each other worriedly:
"So, here comes the question..."
“Who is responsible for carrying more than 100 kilograms of bamboo up the mountain every day?”
"Help! 250 loves meat, let's go next door and steal the wild yellow cattle!"
"Going to the mountain lord's territory to steal wild yellow cattle? Excuse me, are you Zhen'an?"
“…Puff!”
The staff sighed in worry and put on masks of pain.
After discussion, they decided to use rock-paper-scissors to select the unlucky deer who had to carry more than 100 kilograms of bamboo every day and complete the mountain climbing feat.
Before we could figure out who was the real culprit, the next day, we were surprised to find that:
There is no need to go up the mountain to deliver bamboo yourself.
The three bears actually went down the mountain by themselves!!!
It is not uncommon for pandas to come down the mountain.
The conservation team has been accompanying the wild pandas in Qinling Mountains for many years and often sees pandas strolling down the mountain.
They inferred that some pandas came down the mountain simply to avoid danger or out of curiosity.
Finding there was no food at the foot of the mountain and the environment was particularly unfamiliar, the timid giant panda quickly rolled back into the mountain.
The staff originally thought that 250 was in the same situation and left the habitat out of curiosity.
Once the little bears discover that there are hidden treasures in the environment below the mountain, they will obediently return to the forest and imitate their own kind to find a new habitat.
Unexpectedly, under the close watch of the staff, 250 not only did not back down, but instead roamed around the mountains and fields with ease as if it was his own backyard.
Giant pandas live in medium and high altitude areas. The medium and low altitude areas on the southern slope of the Qinling Mountains are also the largest habitat of the crested ibis, a national first-class protected bird.
In 1981, seven crested ibis, which had been declared extinct, were found in Yang County, Shaanxi Province, one of the hometowns of giant pandas. This attracted great attention from the whole country and was even included in elementary school textbooks, causing shock around the world.
In the decades that followed, people worked to optimize the habitat of the crested ibis and carried out regional cooperation on animal protection.
Thanks to the unremitting efforts of the entire human society, the total number of crested ibises in the world has exceeded five digits.
In Shaanxi alone, the number of red-crowned cranes has reached 7,700, which is a shot in the arm for animal protectors from all walks of life!
Zhima Tangyuan stayed on the top of the mountain for a long time and rarely saw the red-crowned crane.
Just after climbing down a little bit, a large number of Crested Ibis nests appeared in the forest.
Wild crested ibises lay eggs every spring, and the incubation period is 28 days.
The summer young crested ibises have hatched but have not yet learned to fly.
The baby birds flapped their short wings in the nest and chirped, calling their parents.
Yu Yiyun's DNA for hatching eggs in her previous life started to move. She used her weight advantage to catch (crush) (kill) a rabbit, then climbed up to the top of a tree with the delicious rabbit meat in her mouth, and happily fed it to Xiao Jiujiu.
"Eeyee~"
Come, brother will feed you rabbit~
"Tsk!" Enemy beast!
The little red-crowned crane had only been hatched for a few days and had not yet learned to fly. How could it have ever seen such a huge creature?
Seeing that the corners of Sesame Tangyuan's mouth were stained with blood and that there was a piece of meat almost as big as itself in its mouth, the little red-crowned crane was so scared that it buried its head in the roots of its wings and stuck its butt high.
"Eh?" You don't want to eat?
According to Yu Yiyun, wild red-crowned cranes mainly feed on loaches, fish, shrimps and insects, and mammals are not on their menu.
Loaches live in the mud of creeks or paddy fields. They are slippery and particularly difficult to catch.
Yu Yiyun couldn't risk turning into a mud ball just to rub the little bird, right?
Finding that the bird refused to accept her feeding, Yu Yiyun thought for a few seconds and then ate the rabbit by herself.
Don't waste food.
Just as they were eating happily, the mother red-crowned crane flew back with a loach in its mouth.
I saw a panda scratching around next to the nest, smacking its short mouth. There was blood foam around the edges of its mouth, and a piece of broken bone fell out while it was eating.
Sesame dumplings, which have always been frugal with food, would not miss out on the calcium-supplementing product such as broken bones, and would lower its head and crawl into the bird's nest to look for them.
"Tsk tsk!" Bad bear, get out of my house!
The mother red-crowned crane immediately sounded the tenth level alert, folded her wings and dived at full speed to attack the sesame dumplings.
Yu Yiyun looked up and found that the mother crested ibis's posture looked familiar.
——Isn't this the attacking stance that Falcon taught me? !
"Eeyee!"
Yu Yiyun wanted to explain, but found it was too late.
The angry mother crested ibis flapped its wings and pecked at the bird's head with its long beak.
Sesame Tangyuan reacted too quickly, and due to its body size, several tufts of its hair were pecked off when it climbed down the tree.
"Ahh!" It hurts so much!
"Eeyee?" Where did the bird come from? It's really unreasonable!
"Eey, ey, ey!" I was worried that your baby bird would starve to death, so I kindly gave it some rabbit to eat, but you pecked me!
Sesame Glutinous Rice Balls felt very aggrieved and defended themselves loudly.
The mother crested ibis drove away the enemy animal and returned to the nest to take a look.
"Tsk!"
"Chirp!"
The two cubs stayed safe and sound in the nest, not a single hair was missing.
"Eeyee!"
"Eeyee!"
Sesame Tangyuan was so angry that he circled around the tree trunk and said the most cruel words in his life:
"I will definitely rob your bird's nest next year!"
[getting fat.jpg]
As the saying goes, life doesn't have so many spectators.
But bear life is different.
Zhima Tangyuan escaped the infrared lens of the panda reserve. Who would have thought that the baby bird he fed turned out to be the child star who was the focus of this year's attention and whose growth process was monitored 24 hours a day.
The moment the big bear face appeared in the camera, the animal experts responsible for the protection of the red-crowned crane immediately attached great importance to it.
You know, the probability of a red-crowned crane being eaten by a giant panda is very low, but theoretically it is not zero.
The old professor who was in charge of the breeding and protection of the crested ibis this year was so surprised that his blood pressure rose when he discovered that the alien giant panda had a unique vision and accurately selected a crested ibis nest as a typical observation for the entire team.
He stretched out his hand tremblingly, measured his blood pressure while counting the Buddhist beads, and prayed that the panda would not eat meat.
Unfortunately, he met 250, who was known for his unrestrained attitude towards food.
Before the old professor finished chanting, the foreign giant panda skillfully caught a wild rabbit.
Living in the same area of the Qinling Mountains, even though the Crested Ibis team does not have a deep understanding of giant pandas, they know the general habits of this national treasure.
This was the first time in history that they had encountered such a nimble fat bear.
Seeing the giant panda holding the rabbit in its paws and tearing the hide with its newly replaced strong teeth, the Crested Ibis team had only one thought:
You have eaten the rabbit, but you can’t eat the bird!
Unexpectedly, the introduced panda did not eat the rabbit, but climbed up the tree with the rabbit in its mouth.
As the Crested Ibis team all made the same expression of "old man on the subway looking at his phone", Sesame Rice Ball held rabbit meat in its mouth and fed it to the Crested Ibis' beak.
The little crested ibis, which had never seen such a huge beast, was obviously frightened and hid in the innermost part of the bird's nest, trembling.
The giant panda failed to feed the rabbit and was obviously stunned for a few seconds, then ate the rabbit itself.
Just as the team members were observing closely, fearing that "he might want to fatten up the prey before eating it", the mother crested ibis who had been out foraging returned to the nest and drove the giant panda away without giving any explanation.
Seeing Sesame Dumpling circling around the tree in a wronged manner, the staff who were originally afraid that he would hurt the little crested ibis even began to sympathize with the foreign bear and wanted to rush over to explain a few words for him.
After the video was released, netizens expressed their sympathy.
[Hahahaha, touch 250, when has our Qinling Mountain Overlord ever suffered such an injustice! ]
[More than 250 is polite, and brings gifts when visiting a house~]
[u1s1, I saw Shanba climb up a tree, and my first reaction was that he wanted to eat a bird (sliding on his knees)
[+1, so the 250 is not unfair]
[A quick question: Are giant pandas and crested ibis so close? The fact that giant pandas and red pandas were neighbors before has already refreshed my understanding.]
[Back to the top, let's learn about the four treasures of Qinling. The giant pandas on the south slope live with the crested ibis, and the giant pandas on the north slope live with the golden monkeys. (Unfortunately, there are too few giant pandas and golden monkeys on the north slope, so no wild photos of the same species have been taken so far.)
[Yes! The number of giant pandas and golden monkeys in the wild has increased in recent years. The infrared camera on the north slope has captured them often active in the same area. Maybe there will be epic commemorative photos soon.]
[Yes! We have photos of wild giant pandas and South China tigers. I believe everything is possible! ]
Zhima Tangyuan refused to accept the defeat, and dug up several bird nests in succession, trying to lure out a rabbit... no, to adopt a little crested ibis.
Unfortunately, every time the mother crested ibis would rush back in time and yell at them, ruining their evil plans.
Helplessly, Yu Yijun had to put his thoughts aside and took the little bear, who was almost tired of being rubbed, along the mountain road and moved to the lower altitude area again.
The Qinling Mountains are known as the 'backbone of China', with an average altitude of 1,600 kilometers and a north-south width of 200 kilometers.
It stands in the center, equivalent to a wall 1,600 kilometers long and 200 kilometers thick, which is indestructible.
Even the cold air that flows through this area finds it difficult to cross the north-south barrier.
Yu Yiyun certainly didn't want to make things more difficult for herself and challenge the steep and dangerous mountain road.
Compared to climbing over one mountain after another, there is obviously an easier road at the foot of the mountain.
Yu Yiyun was unwilling to endure the hardship, so he and his friends climbed to a low-altitude area, almost reaching the nearby winding mountain road.
Along the fences on both sides of the road, the terrain is flat, and even a small bear can conquer it easily.
The biggest disadvantage is that there are few water sources and bamboo forests here.
Bamboo needs a lot of sunlight and water to grow. When there is no water source, pandas can absorb water through bamboo.
Due to human activities in low-altitude areas, trees are sparse and only wild grass can be found on the surface.
Giant pandas occasionally eat wild grass to change their taste, but their staple food is still bamboo.
Even though sesame glutinous rice balls particularly like to eat meat, bamboo and bamboo shoots still occupy a larger proportion in the dietary structure.
If they couldn't find bamboo along the way, the three bears wouldn't be able to go very far on this road.
Fortunately, Yu Yiyun had anticipated this, so he deliberately slowed down his pace, leaving enough biological information to reveal his location.
The next morning, a pile of neatly cut bamboos and some still warm sheep's stomach milk bottles appeared in front of the three bears.
Hey, bamboos are falling from the sky~
After eating and drinking his fill, Xiongxiong happily set off again, seemingly not worried about food at all.
At first, the staff did not think much about it, and thought that "when the pandas come down the mountain, at least they don't have to carry hundreds of kilograms of bamboo up the mountain."
The panda reserves in the middle section of Qinling Mountains are mostly located in counties with slow economic development, such as Foping, Liuba, Ningqiang, etc.
If there were no giant pandas, most people would probably never have heard of these place names.
The road near the foot of the mountain has less traffic, and monitoring points and warning signs are set up everywhere to ensure that passing vehicles do not harm wild animals.
Since the three bears like to fool around, the staff simply let them do what they want.
As a national treasure, you should be a little arrogant.
Around the fifth day of observation, the conservation team became aware of a strange phenomenon.
The three bears seemed to be fooling around, but they actually had a clear direction and were migrating roughly toward the northwest.
Up to now, wild giant pandas in Qinling Mountains only live in Shaanxi Province, with a total of seven local areas, and the shortest distance between them is generally only a few dozen kilometers.
Due to the treacherous mountain roads and the lack of food in the territory, several areas must rely on human intervention to communicate with each other.
Domestic panda protection teams have established cross-provincial protection projects with the intention of expanding the range of panda activities, but have never been able to break down the barriers between regions.
Because no bear took the first step, the protection team tried their best but still could not be sure:
How do wild pandas cross geographical barriers?
The staff were so excited that they almost jumped up when they found that the three little bears were walking closer and closer to the nearby nature reserve.
The scent left by the little bear along the way will convey to its peers that "this road is passable."
As long as we track the route of the little bear and prepare resources along the way that can keep the panda alive, maybe it won’t be long before this road is open!
At that time, the conservation team will not have to go to the trouble of moving sub-adult pandas to new reserves to increase genetic diversity; they will just visit each other on their own.
As the movement becomes more and more frequent, the barrier between the two sides is bound to disappear.
The panda habitat that was once isolated due to human expansion will surely be reconnected!
Realizing this, all the experts and scholars in the country responsible for panda protection immediately convened a meeting.
Everyone who pays attention to pandas knows the importance of connecting habitats, and calls the path the little pandas have taken the 'Silk Road of the Panda World'.
More than two thousand years later, at the origin of the Silk Road, natural civilization took its first steps.
After several days of discussion, the experts at the meeting unanimously decided that the road to the little bear must be protected as a priority.
However, everyone knows that the premise of this key project is that the three little bears can really connect different protected areas.
"Please, 250, all my hopes are on you!"
"What's the point of calling him 250 at a time like this? As long as he can get to the next protected area, he's my god!"
When the news came out, the three fooling around little bears received unprecedented attention.
There were even enthusiastic people who came from far away and drove around the winding mountain road eight times just to see where the three little bears had gone.
Sometimes Yu Yiyun got hungry while walking and looked for scattered bamboos and bamboo shoots.
A passing driver became anxious and took out the food from his car to feed the little bear.
"babble!"
Yu Yiyun emerged from the woods and yelled while clinging to the warning sign.
There are ten big characters written on the warning sign:
'Respect nature and strive to be civilized people.'
"Yiyi!" Feeding wild animals is prohibited.
The enthusiastic driver thought of the tragedy of the internet-famous Hoh Xil wolf, which lost its vigilance due to being fed by humans, and ended up running onto the road and being hit and killed. He silently put away the bear biscuits that had already been torn out of the package.
Yu Yiyun looked at the bear biscuits with disdain: Who wants to eat that stuff!
The next day, cordons were set up on both sides of the road with red banners hanging on them: Feeding wild animals is prohibited.
In order to prevent the tragedy of the Hoh Xil wolf from happening again, the upright deer went into the woods overnight and began to plant bamboo on the path that the little bear must pass.
Sesame Tangyuan woke up, crawled out of the tree hole, saw the emerald green bamboo, and thought he had traveled through time.
Amid the attention and expectations of countless people, on the ninth day of their departure, Sesame Tangyuan finally arrived at the neighboring nature reserve, which was only 60 kilometers away.
After confirming that 250 had arrived at the target location, screams rang out in the duty room, and everyone fulfilled their wishes in different ways.
After a brief revelry, this group of highly intellectuals who had received a materialistic education quickly calmed down.
The shortest straight-line distance between the two reserves is only 60 kilometers. Over the past few decades, the pandas on both sides have not visited each other. The reason is simple:
It took ten days to get to the sesame dumplings, which shows that distance is not equal to distance traveled.
The mountain road was rugged, and Sesame Rice Balls successfully reached the foot of the mountain, but it was still quite a distance from the real panda reserve.
What if the three little bears were just passing by and brushed shoulders with the local pandas without looking back?
The conservation team could only watch as the epic 'Silk Road of the Panda World' failed at the last moment.
In order to successfully connect the two habitats of the three bear cubs, the staff of the two nature reserves worked overtime to lay a bamboo road to attract the bear cubs to climb up the mountain.
The staff, who were familiar with the habits of the 250, even used their trump card - serving bamboo shoots stuffed with beef.
Sesame Glutinous Rice Balls picked up the beefy bamboo shoots and looked down upon the little man's methods.
Such an obvious bait, which stupid bear would take the bait...
“Crack—”
He took a big bite, it was delicious~
I'm hooked!
Yu Yiyun had worked so hard for so long, but she actually had no confidence.
After all, his sense of direction is poor for all to see.
If it weren’t for the cordon along the road, Sesame Dumplings would probably still be spinning in circles.
After picking up the bait thrown by the little man, the clever little bear knew that he had found the right place.
"Yeeee~" We're at the neighbor's house!
"Yiyiyi~" Let's go visit some friends!
Ziwei and Little Bear followed Sesame Tangyuan all the way, eating, drinking, playing and having a lot of fun. They also saw something that the other pandas had never seen in their lives: the Wheeled Steel Beast!
Each wheeled steel beast has to eat one or several hairless monkeys, which looks really scary.
Sesame Dumplings babbled and told them not to get close to the Wheely Steel Beast.
Once, they saw the hairless monkey break free from the Wheel Steel Beast and prepare to get off the car and throw something at them.
Sesame Dumpling roared twice bravely, and the Hairless Monkey was caught back by the Wheel Steel Beast again.
After thinking about it, Ziwei and Xiaoxiong came to the conclusion:
Hairless monkey, dangerous!
The Wheeled Steel Beast is even more dangerous!
Sesame dumplings, top of the food chain.
It can intimidate the hairless monkey and command the wheeled steel beast.
Hearing the call from the sesame dumplings at the top of the food chain, the two dumplings immediately followed.
After the short journey, the little bear grew faster.
When other bears were just learning to walk, he could already walk steadily on mountain roads.
When the little bear encountered a high earth slope or a big rock and couldn't climb up, he immediately called out "Na Na Na" to Sesame Rice Balls.
Yu Yiyun was used to Little Bear's separation anxiety, so she resigned herself to her fate and turned back to pick up Little Bear.
Once, they encountered a three or four meter high obstacle. Yu Yiyun was able to climb up, but Ziwei and Xiao Xiaoxiong had a hard time.
As the 'hope of the whole family', Yu Yiyun silently lay underneath, letting Ziwei step on her shoulders, and the little bear stepped on Ziwei's shoulders and climbed up with a grunt.
The little man who was peeping secretly was so cute that he almost screamed and raised his camera to take pictures frantically.
The photo of the "Panda Jenga" was uploaded to the Internet, and it quickly took over the WeChat Moments, topped the trending searches, and even became popular on foreign social media.
Some foreign netizens with wild ideas left messages asking: "When can this panda be rented?", "Please rent it to us first!", "If you rent all three to our country, I am willing to build the largest panda house"...
Seeing netizens from all over the world scrambling to "rent" pandas, a man from Shaanxi got angry and started to talk on the microphone:
'Rent you a fairy! Krima is going to file a case!'
When a foreign netizen clicked 'Translate', the translator froze, so he had to humbly ask the Chinese netizen what the question meant.
Decent Chinese netizens, smiling and popularizing science:
Be good, Qinling giant pandas are not for rent, stop dreaming~
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
