Over 5,000 residents to make way for birds

A staffer at the Zhalong Nature Reserve in Qiqihar of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province feeds a group of 3-month-old red-crowned cranes. — Xinhua

The city of Qiqihar in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province is going to relocate nearly 5,400 villagers from the Zhalong Nature Reserve to protect the area's red-crowned cranes in a project that will cost more than 160 million yuan (US$26.14 million).

The nature reserve, 30 kilometers southeast of the city center, is the world's largest base for the rare species and also a wetland paradise for white-naped cranes. An estimated 300 wild red-crowned cranes inhabit the reserve, accounting for one-fifth of the world's total.

Along with environmental degradation due to the building of dams and dykes, the area's 13 villages of about 5,400 farmers have become a threat to the cranes. The relocation project in China's far northeast has been approved, and the first batch of residents will move by winter of next year.

"Wild red-crowned cranes are very sensitive to human activities. If they sense there are humans around within a distance of about 500 meters, they will at once run away," Su Liying told the Oriental Morning Post.

Su is a crane scientist who has been based in the nature reserve to study the birds since the 1980s.

Spring is the breeding season for the red-crowned cranes, while it's also a time for local farmers to fish and seed in the reserve. In addition, illegal wild hunts, poisoning and thefts of eggs are posing a great threat to the cranes.

"Human activities are ruining the ecological environment in the reserve. The species diversity is also destroyed," Su said.

Villager Wang Futong recalled that during the 1970s there were more bird species in the reserve.

"The water surface was always covered with cranes and geese, which looked like a farmland densely inserted with rice plants," he said.

Su confirms that the number of aquatic birds in the wetland has been dropping in recent years. According to her long-term study, bird populations are shrinking and will never recover to the level of 30 years ago.

"Today, some of the aquatic birds' population quantities are less than one-tenth of the number back in the 1980s," she said.

Villager Wang used to catch more than 500 kilograms of fish within one day, but now the catches are meager.

"There are now more fishing nets underwater, while the fish are fewer," he said.