บท 67: Chapter 633: When the Gunshot Rings
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."
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