Fang Ye couldn't help but ask, "What is the main reason for the rapid decline in the number of gibbons?"
Fan Peng replied, "The main reason is the loss and degradation of habitat. The cultivation of cardamom is the main cause of habitat degradation."
Fang Ye certainly knew what cardamom was. It's a common spice used in cooking, usually added to braised pork or boiled mutton to remove the gamey taste.
Fan Peng explained, "Cardamom is a shade-loving plant. For its cultivation, people will clear the undergrowth, vines, and shrubs under the forest, but they won't cut down all the trees. Because if all the trees are cut down, the cardamom will be scorched by the sun during the dry season and die. So they selectively prune some trees.
From the outside, the forest may not seem to have changed, but in reality, only some big trees are left inside. Small saplings are cleared before they have a chance to grow, the forest has no chance to regenerate. Once the big trees die, these forests will have a large gap, but the locals won't replant the trees."
Fang Ye immediately understood, "This is somewhat similar to the problem faced by Asian elephants! The forest might look green, but it's actually hollow."
The conflict between Asian elephants and humans has been escalating in recent years, mainly because the original forest has been cut down and replaced with economic crops like rubber, including the cultivation of some amomum under the forest.
Rubber may not be as hot as it used to be, but the previously planted rubber trees have not been cleared, and the forest cannot regenerate. It's easy to destroy, but very difficult to restore.
Asian elephants, being colossal creatures, can attract some attention when they conflict with humans, whether they are killed or trample people to death. Gibbons, on the other hand, live in peace with the world and rarely interact with humans. They silently disappear without making a splash.
"In order to study the impact of cardamom cultivation on the behavior of Skywalker gibbons, we chose two places where gibbons are distributed for comparative research.
The first monitoring station was built by us brick by brick. We built the frame ourselves, dragged bamboo rafts from the mountain to make the walls, and then covered the walls with thatch. We also hung a promotional poster of the gibbon.
The Gaoligong Mountains here have a very famous plant, the tree rhododendron. Rhododendrons are usually small shrubs, but the tree rhododendron can grow up to 28 meters high, which is unique to this area and is a world-famous tree species.
Some botanists and horticulturists from around the world have tried their best to witness the magnificence of the tree rhododendron.
There is a grove of tree rhododendrons about one or two kilometers from our monitoring station. Many people come to admire the flowers when they bloom, and they often stop at our place to rest and have tea. So we hung a poster to promote the gibbon, and we introduce some knowledge about gibbons to them."
Fan Peng paused here, took a sip of rice wine, and showed a nostalgic expression, but his eyes soon became melancholy: "Unfortunately, just after 4 months, the group of gibbons we were studying was poached."
He raised his hand, made a "bang" gunshot gesture: "Four shots, and a gibbon family was gone."
Fang Ye's heart tightened, his eyebrows furrowed, "How dare they!"
He was somewhat puzzled, "Why poach gibbons? To keep them as pets?"
Fan Peng gave a bitter smile, "Perhaps a relative or friend at home has epilepsy, and they use gibbons to treat it. There is a legend about gibbons, which is that they are so steady on trees, so they might be able to cure epilepsy."
Fang Ye sighed, "Ah!"
Fan Peng added, "Of course, customs vary from place to place. In some places, gibbon skeletons are used in medicine, and in some places, poaching of gibbons rarely happens because the locals believe that hunting gibbons will lead to disasters."
Fang Ye nodded, the relationship between religion and local customs and wildlife is very close, and it's not necessarily a negative relationship.
Some well-meaning people release animals indiscriminately, releasing snakes around the community, invasive species like Brazilian turtles and sucker fish into rivers and lakes. There was even a recent case of someone releasing crocodiles, buying baby crocodiles from a farm and releasing them into the lake.
Of course, they also don't know the necessary survival environment for these animals, and when they are fished out a few days later, they are already dead, wasting a lot of manpower and resources.
This kind of blind release is not doing good deeds, but committing evil.
In places like Tibet, with its sacred mountains and lakes and the concept of equality among all creatures, it has played a good role in protecting the snow mountain environment and the snow leopards, the spirits of the plateau.
Fan Peng continued, "There are also those who capture gibbons as pets, but only gibbon cubs can be tamed.
Unlike other primates, gibbons place great importance on family and will fight to the death to protect their family members.
When poachers try to capture a gibbon child, the fathers will be killed first, then the siblings, and finally the mother carrying the baby. Once the baby is targeted, no other family members will survive.
The baby usually clings tightly to its mother. If the mother dies, it may also fall from a height of several tens of meters and cannot survive.
From poaching to transportation, behind a gibbon pet are 239 of its kind who die. The survival rate of pets is also very low, they may die after being kept for a couple of years."
Li Xing shook his head and said, "Sometimes when I see videos on social media of owl cafes or monkeys wearing human clothes, and a bunch of people commenting on how cute, obedient, and envious they are, I really can't laugh."
Fang Ye said, "When Yang Xiaochao and her team came to the zoo to film a variety show, I also communicated repeatedly with the program group, hoping not to convey wrong information to the audience."
These animals are cute and charming, but they are not suitable as pets. Wild animals and cute pets are two different things.
He filled their glasses again.
Li Xing said, "Director Fang is very responsible. I see some zoos specifically use this as a selling point, like chimps smoking or hugging people for photos."
Fan Peng continued, "After the gunshot, we still had some hope, fantasizing that the gibbons might have hidden somewhere else and dared not call out. We stayed in this place for another 6 months, but we never saw this gibbon family again. They might have really been killed by the gunshot. We had to give up this monitoring station.
Then we came to a new monitoring station. It's close to the road, and logistics is very convenient. Unfortunately, the gibbon population here is very small. When we conducted the survey, there were three of them, a male and a female forming a family.
This family originally had a child, but for some reason, it died. Later, they had another one, and a few years ago, they had another one. Now this family has four members.
There is also a solitary female gibbon, who is the cousin of the male gibbon in that family."
Fang Ye raised his eyebrows, "Oh?"
"Yes, the one we're looking for a mate for."
Fan Peng said, "This population is completely isolated from other populations. Our research and investigation over the past ten years have not found any gibbons migrating to this population. The female gibbon is still single, and she is now quite old, probably about twenty years old.
Because the lifespan of gibbons is also 20 to 30 years, if she doesn't find a mate soon, she may have to live alone in a few years, and die alone. So when we see her always alone in the tree, looking sadly into the distance, it feels quite heartbreaking!"
Every day, she listens to her brother and sister-in-law singing in harmony, their children can even sing along.
She harbors dreams of love, and she calls out to the distance every day, always waiting for her "Prince Charming" to appear and sing a love song to her.
From a young girl, waiting and waiting, until her youth is no more, she grows old, and her dream lover never appears. Even the gibbon songs echoing in the forest are getting fewer and fewer.
Regardless of the ethical issues, it's hard to maintain a non-interfering attitude in this situation.
Fang Ye curiously asked, "What about the other male gibbon that is prepared to be her mate?"
Fan Peng said, "The other male gibbon is the child of Grandpa and Grandma!
Grandpa and Grandma are the names we rarely give to gibbons. Because we always call them by their numbers, which feels a bit distant, and they are also quite old, so we gave them these names."
When it came to Grandpa and Grandma, he became much more enthusiastic and started to tell some interesting stories about them.
Li Xing, who already knew these stories, was happily drinking rice wine on the side.
The two gibbons are very affectionate, and Grandpa grooms Grandma every day.
Gibbons are different from other primates, they follow a monogamous system. Usually, during grooming, it's the male who grooms the female, just like human males combing females' hair.
Grandma's eyesight is not good, she may have been injured before, her left eye can only squint to see things, and she should be much older than Grandpa. Grandpa's finger is also broken.
But this does not affect their display of affection at all. Every day, these researchers can get a full meal from watching them.
Living in the forest, it's inevitable to compete with other animals for food. They have seen several encounters with red pandas.
Once, they swung to the Amomum tsaoko bushes occupied by a red panda. Grandpa swung over, but Grandma was stuck in the middle, surrounded by two red pandas, her eyebrows squeezed into a frown.
A few days later, they discovered a dense parasitic plant in a tree, feeling that they could find bugs to eat inside. Grandma excitedly climbed over, only to find a red panda lying inside. She was about to leave, but perhaps still bearing a grudge about the incident a few days ago, she reached out and pulled the red panda's tail.
However, the red panda remained very calm, letting Grandma pull its tail a few times, its eyes rolling but refusing to move. Grandma had to leave in disappointment.
Then there was the time when Grandpa and Grandma teamed up to attack a red panda, stealing a mountain orange from the tree where it was staying. Grandma, who got the mountain orange, couldn't wait to start eating, only to find out it was unripe when she opened it, and had to be comforted by Grandpa.
Besides the peaceful and happy daily life, there were also some scares.
Once, a goshawk flew overhead, startling Grandma, who screamed and curled up, waking up the drowsy Grandpa. He groomed her for a while, and only then did Grandma go to sleep peacefully.
When other gibbons invaded their territory, Grandpa went out to fight, and Grandma was so anxious that she was spinning around in the tree, calling out loudly until Grandpa returned, swinging back on a thin bamboo pole. Only then did she calm down.
In Fang Ye's mind, a scene emerged.
Grandpa, returning victorious, opened his arms and ran towards Grandma. Grandma, seeing Grandpa, immediately stopped calling. The two gibbons sat down hand in hand, leaning on each other.
Such a touching and mutually supportive love, should also be rare in the animal kingdom.
Fan Peng added, "Actually, for gibbons, these little scares are quite normal, and they handle them quite calmly. What really frightens them are human activities."
Through their years of extensive field research, they found that the planting of cardamom has a certain adaptation for gibbons. The manifestation is an increase in foraging time. When there is less food, they will eat more leaves, spend more time eating, and less time resting, sleeping later.
This impact is not enough to lead to extinction, but as people plant cardamom into the forest, the frequent motor vehicle noise during the harvest season, the bell sounds of pack horses, and some people may bring dogs into the forest. The dogs chase animals and bark, which severely disturbs the gibbons.
Grandpa and Grandma, during these times, would lose their appetite and stay high in the treetops all day, staring in the direction of the noise.
Perhaps this is also a factor affecting their breeding rate, as their breeding intervals are far longer than those of gibbons in other areas.
Coming back to the point, Grandpa and Grandma have two children, both of whom have grown up and become independent.
One male gibbon has already started a family, while the other is still single. This time, they are trying to matchmake the single female gibbon with the child of Grandpa and Grandma.
Fang Ye exclaimed, "It's not just humans who worry about getting married, gibbons are even more worried!"
Fan Peng laughed, "Haha, isn't that the truth? Given their age, the old couple probably don't have any other aspirations, they're just hoping their child can start a family."
After their chat, Fang Ye escorted them to the zoo gate, "If you need anything, don't hesitate to contact me! I'll be waiting for your good news!"
Fan Peng and Li Xing waved their hands, got in the car, and left.
Fang Ye turned back to Lan Li and told her the story of the gibbons. Lan Li was sobbing, "The single female gibbon is so pitiful!"
With tears in her eyes, she asked, "Can the two gibbons hold hands successfully?"
Fang Ye gently comforted her, "They will!"
...
Start the live broadcast!
"First one here!"
"Here we go!"
"Director Fang, I want to see your baby red pandas! Ahhh!"
"Baby pandas?"
"No, it's baby red pandas! Didn't you see the article on their official account a while ago, they're so cute."
"Speaking of which, I wanted to search for some pictures of baby red pandas after watching their birth on Director Fang's live broadcast last time, but all I got were pictures of baby giant pandas. The media really knows how to annoy people."
"If it weren't for watching Director Fang's live broadcast, I probably wouldn't even know there's an animal called a red panda..."
As the viewers sent in their comments, the live broadcast room quickly became lively.
Fang Ye laughed, "I'll take you all to see them in a bit!"
The red pandas are now a week old. Red Bean's mood has somewhat stabilized. As someone Red Bean trusts and is close to, it's okay to disturb her a little.
The raccoons have also been learning to climb trees under their mother's guidance recently. Today, they're planning to show the viewers their growth, along with some other animals.
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