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March 25, 2015

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Bringing a new lease of life to city wetland areas

THERE’S an old saying in China: men die for fortune, birds die for food.

They arrive, often exhausted, at city wintering grounds, unsure of what they will — or won’t — find.

Habitat destruction and water pollution may have wiped out their food supply from the previous year, leaving them having to fly on hungry or face a grim fate.

How vulnerable species are to habitat loss is illustrated by the sad story of Shanghai’s tundra swans, which migrate down from Siberia and the Arctic.

In the 1980s, Dongtan wetland on Chongming Island was home to the largest flock of wintering tundra swans in China, estimated at more than 3,000.

But after a major land reclamation project in the early 1990s, the numbers crashed to almost zero.

The reason was simple. Tideland was enclosed for cultivation, depriving the tundra swans of their grassweed food source — an aquatic plant common in wetlands. Without a suitable habitat, the birds had to look elsewhere.

In recent years, as the wetlands within national conservation areas have become protected, plantlife is returning, as are some tundra swans.

Numbers are increasing, but it’s still only a small fraction compared to previous times.

Ducks, geese and swans make up the bulk of migratory birds that winter in Shanghai every year.

Inshore mudflats, rivers and lakeland areas are ideal habitats, but as land pressure outside of reserves sees such areas turned into farmland, the birds are squeezed out.

Most migrants arrive from the Arctic, Siberia and northern China. After the breeding season in the north, the adult birds take the juveniles and embark on the long trip to the middle and lower Yangtze River, stopping off at Shanghai.

Many of Shanghai’s migrants have their own niches, ensuring there is not too much friction with other species.

The ducks are omnivorous, with food mainly consisting of water plants and aquatic creatures.

Shanghai’s swans and geese, on the other hand, are predominantly herbivores.

They mainly inhabit in inshore areas in Chongming Dongtan, Jiuduansha in Pudong New Area and Nanhui Dongtan, and feed on tender leaf buds.

As well as habitat loss and pollution, Shanghai’s ducks, geese and swans also still have to contend with some poaching, even though officials say the problem is less widespread that before.

To protect wildlife in Shanghai — not just birds, but everything from rabbits to frogs — the city created its first wildlife reserve in Nanhui Dongtan — covering an area of 122.5 square kilometers north of the Luchao Port ferry terminal in the Pudong new Area — in 2007, followed by another in Fengxian District in 2013.

The reserves are backed by legislation that makes it a criminal offence to capture or kill creatures that live there.

Anyone caught with more than 20 animals faces criminal charges. The severity of the charges increases according to the number of animals involved.

Gu Jianming, law enforcement division chief at the Pudong New Area wildlife protection station, has been working in the district since 1997.

Among the responsibilities of Gu and his four-strong team is investigating poaching.

This winter, the team captured six people who had hunted more than 100 animals at the reserve.

“If we capture poachers at the scene, no matter the number of animals they’ve hunted, we hand them over to the police,” Gu said.

The law enforcement has to catch them on the scene with evidence in hand.

“We caught poachers who had caught four Chinese hares using electric nets,” he said.

“There are also people who report cases to us. We follow the leads to investigate,” Gu explained.

Live wildlife found with poachers is set free. Animals that are dead are buried, added Gu.

The team’s work follows seasonal cycles. In winter, when ducks, geese and swans arrive in large numbers, the team steps up patrols at wetlands.

In October when other migratory birds arrive, they pay more attention to the woodland those species favor.

And in March and April when the waders come, they focus more on the mudflats.

“A few years back there were more poachers hunting waders, ducks, geese and swans but as we’ve increased patrols and law enforcement efforts, we have few wildlife poaching cases in Dongtan now,” Gu said.

Gu said that occasionally poachers will turn violent when confronted, but that this is very rare.

“Sometimes they’re rude, using strong language, but we’re reasonable and explain to them,” he said.

“Usually they’ll understand these animals cannot be captured,” he said.

As we near the end of March and most migratory birds have left to fly north, it’s difficult to find any ducks, geese and swans in Shanghai.

But when they return this winter, Dishui Lake in the southeast corner of Pudong is a good place to see ducks and geese as well as other species such as Eurasian coots.

Though birdwatching has only been a popular pastime in Shanghai for a decade, many previously undocumented species have been spotted — such as Baer’s pochard, the scaly-sided merganser and the whooper swan.

Surprises come all the time, and these “VIPs” may just be looking at you as you walk by, say city birdwatchers.

• 2008: During an inshore bird survey in Fengxian, an investigator spotted a scaly-sided merganser — a species so rare now that it’s called “panda in water.”

• 2010: A birder spotted a very rare ferruginous duck among a flock of ducks in Dongtan Wetland Park.

• 2011: In a first in Shanghai, two twitchers spotted a black scoter (also called American scoter) on the Paotaiwan wetland park while observing herring gulls.

Twitchers battle it out

The 10th Shanghai Bird Race identifying species is one of the events for the 34th Shanghai Bird Week, organized by the Shanghai Wildlife Conservation Association, the Wild Bird Society of Shanghai and the Shanghai Botanical Garden.

The event will take place at the botanical garden on April 18, and the outdoor team training on April 11 is arranged at Century Park for the time being.

The competition will be postponed in the event of rain.

For details (only in Chinese), go to www.shwbs.org and email entry forms to hudong@shwbs.org and yangzhid@hotmail.com.

If you can’t read Chinese and want to take part,
e-mail the above addresses with your team name, the number of team members and their names, plus contact information.

Applications will be accepted for teams of four to six birdwatchers — also known as twitchers. Individuals without a team can also sign up directly and the organizers will create teams.

The fee is 100 yuan (US$16) for a team or 20 for one person, covering expenses during the competition, including training.

During the two-hour competition, teams will be asked to identify by sight or their songs. Expert judges will conduct observations at the same time and compare their findings with those of teams.

After a Q&A session and review by the judges, the team that spotted the most species correctly will be declared the winner.




 

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