The stories of the Poyang Lake's wild animals and their protectors amid extreme drought

As the only member of the Living Lakes Network from China, the Poyang Lake is Asia’s largest wintering ground for migratory birds. It also offers habitats and shelter for Yangtze finless porpoise and many other rare and endangered species.

Photo by Fu Jianbin

Due to the extreme drought weather events that started in July in the Yangtze River Basin, the lake has suffered the severest water shortage crisis since hydrological records for the lake were started in 1951. For a period of time, it even saw its surface area shrink by over 90 percent.

The extreme drought conditions in the lake have greatly reduced the living spaces for wild animals that inhabit the area. Are these animals still alright? As winter continues, we have set out around the lake to listen to the stories about the harmonious coexistence of people that watch over the lake and the animals.

For the "smiling angel"

Photo by Xu Nanping

“Look! That is a Yangtze finless porpoise.” Braving the freezing wind that penetrates people’s bones in December, we could hardly open our eyes as we moved forward in waters around Piaoyatou, an area of the lake around the Songmen Mountain. Mr. Pan, however, spotted the porpoise soon after it came into view. Following the direction he pointed for us. We saw a porpoise leaping out of the water. But it soon went out of sight, leaving only ripples.

The full name of Mr. Pan is Pan Ximing. He is a member of the law enforcement team for fishing management in Yongxiu county. Since September 2021, he has been on duty in the area.

“When I came, I only wore a shirt with short sleeves. It has almost been 100 days,” he said.

Yangtze finless porpoise has a very round head. The shape of its mouth makes it look like iti is smiling. Because of this, it is often dubbed the "smiling angel".

It is now the only cetacean living in the Yangtze River. It’s an important index species that can signal the achievements made in the Yangtze conservation and the health conditions of the river.

The Poyang Lake is referred to as the “last fortress” for Yangtze finless porpoise, as half of the species’ population inhabit the waterbody. Stretching for over 40 square kilometers, the Piaoyatou area is where experts have spotted the porpoise multiple times. The severe shrinkage of the Poyang’s surface area has posed a grave threat to the animal.

“The water level of the lake went down too fast. We all worry that the Yangtze finless porpoise will be stranded in shallow waters,” Pan said.

On Sept 23 when Pan patrolled the lake with his colleagues, tips of some submerged rocks had been found above the surface of the water, which suggests that the porpoise would be stranded any time. Since then, instead of patrolling the lake twice a week as they had previously did, they have chosen to stay on duty around the clock. Aside from patrolling personally, they also employ drones to help watch over the animal to ensure that no porpoise will go into distress without being found.

“Our eight colleagues work around two shifts. At the very beginning, we eat and live on boats, though we have built makeshift houses on the shore area some days later,” Pan said.

On bad days, the big sun on the shore area makes us dizzy. At night, we would have to suffer from mosquitos. It was so hot and stuffy that we sometimes failed to fall asleep for a whole night, he added.

In October, the sharp decrease of  temperature and the freezing wind from the lake often made us tremble, as we didn’t have time to go back home to bring some thick cloths. We work around a shift for over 20 days and nights. During that time, we always eat instant noodles. We however found it increasingly difficult to swallow the noodles.

Despite these difficulties, Pan and his colleagues have never thought about quitting. “We are guards of the Yangtze finless porpoise! As long as the water level does not rise to the level that is completely safe for them, we will not stop patrolling around the clock,” he said resolutely.

Also in the Piaoyatou area, Zhan Boshan from the law enforcement team for fishing management from Changdu county shoulders up another important task.

Because of the large concentration of Yangtze finless porpoise in the area, they not only face the risk of being stranded, but also face a potential food shortage. Following thorough discussions of experts and their careful arrangement, Zhan led over 30 fishermen to the area to help dozens of the porpoise to migrate on November 4.

After accepting the task, all of them took it very seriously. They surveyed in the area for two days with help of various apparatus. Aside from metering the speed of water flow and the depth of the water, they prepared nets with big and small meshes.

Before they went into action, they designated specific people for certain tasks, including driving the boat, casting the fishing nets, capture, transportation, and medical care. To avoid the porpoise being injured by the fishermen’s fingernails, those tasked to pick up the animal were all asked to cut their fingernails as short as possible.

In the operation, once a porpoise was picked up, it would be immediately put onto a stretcher and then sent to a water so as not to affect the respiratory function of the animal.

There were also experts standing by. They measured the time to check the health condition of each of the porpoises to ensure that they would be transported to the area with deep water safe and sound.

“The great difficulty in the work is to make them gather together. We spent over 20 days in completing the task,” Zhan said. Once their persistent efforts, which lasted for a whole day, end in vain. Because of the turbulent water, the hungry and tired team saw porpoises escape from the net they had so meticulously casted.

“Do you think the efforts were worth it?” we asked.

“It worth it! We hope that our future generations will also see the Yangtze finless porpoise. We should unswervingly preserve it.” Zhan answered without any hesitation.

There are now 203 fishing management teams in the Poyang Lake. Many of them are just like Pan and Zhan. They safeguard the “smiling angel” silently.

The preliminary results from the 2022 scientific investigation of the Yangtze finless porpoise, which was organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs shows that the porpoise saw its wild population rise from the 1,012 ones in 2017. The number of the animals went up noticeably in the Hukou sections of the Yangtze and some other sections. What’s more, more mother and baby porpoises have been spotted, indicating that the species’ population is in further recovery.

Treat the guests from far away well

Photo by Fu Jianbin

“How many birds are there in Poyang Lake? When they fly, you cannot see the clouds and the moon. When they land, they cover all the grass on the shore area,” as a saying goes.

It was a sunny day on December 9. On that day, over 50,000 migratory birds were resting in the rice fields of the Chaqi branch of Kangshan farm in Yugan county, ruffling their  wings and lowering their heads in search of food. They, together with the blue sky and the beautiful Daming Lake, one of the plate-shaped water areas sn the Poyang Lake that come into being every dry season after water levels goes down, made up a vivid and harmonious ecological picture.

“These little birds are smart! The terrible drought in the Poyang Lake left many fish, shrimp, snails, and clams dead. Compared with 2021, the number of migratory birds coming to winter went up by 20,000. They came 10 days ahead of the usual time. There are now almost 2,000 white cranes, over 500 Oriental storks, and more than 400 swans. With almost 50,000, wild goose outnumbered all other birds. There are also some grey cranes,” said Zhang Keshun, a ranger with the Poyang Lake wetland ecological protection center of Yugan county.

Zhang was asked to devote himself to the patrolling mission 15 days earlier than usual. To find injured migratory birds in a timely fashion, he patrols more frequently than he did previously. In 2021, he patrolled the Daming Lake once every seven to 10 days. Now he patrols once or even twice a day.

Several days ago, a resident from a nearby village sent an injured swan to him. Zhang fed him rice and found, however, that the swan failed to notice his moving hands. “There must be something wrong with its eyes. I called the county forestry administration immediately and then sent it to the administration for treatment,” he told us.

To ensure that migratory birds can winter in the area safe and sound, the Yugan government paid farmers to leave the rice they planted in about 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of field so that they can work as a “canteen” for the birds. Fifty mu of the rice belong to Zhang. For that, he was compensated more than 60,000 yuan. If he harvested the rice to sell, he expects that he could pocket another 3,000 yuan. But he didn’t complain for the loss.

“It doesn’t matter. I consider that as a treat for guests from far away,” he said.

In the Duchang county natural reserve for migratory birds, which is over 100 kilometers away from Yugan, Li Yue, the head of the reserve administration  resorts to another approach to protect the migratory birds.

Duchang is an important wintering area for migratory birds in the northern part of the Poyang Lake. Several plate-shaped water areas that regularly aw large numbers of migratory birds in previous years dried up much earlier.

“The plate-shaped water areas boast of rich biodiversity resources, and are a paradise for migratory birds. To enliven the plate-shaped water areas, we have been busy for several months,” he said.

In late September, after figuring out the conditions in the plate-shaped water areas that had seen large flocks of migratory birds in previous years, they carried out ecological water supplementation in a plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain to remediate it, which is close to the shipping lane of the Poyang Lake and has good condition for water diversion.

“As an almost natural approach, the so-called ecological water supplementation is to build dikes with soil other than cement and steel bars to help divert water into the plate-shaped water area before the arrival of large flocks of migratory birds,” Li told us.

He said the plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain once shrank to only over 300 mu. To help divert water to it, four high-power pumps worked around the clock via an almost 200-meter channel they built.

“To ensure that all emerging problems could be timely addressed in the water diversion operation, some patrollers lived in tents they put up on island covered by grass for dozens of days,” he recalled.

Almost two months later, the water supplemented to the plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain had reached over 400,000 cubic meters. Thanks to the supplementation, the water level in the area rose by over 40 centimeters, and its surface area expanded to more than 800 mu. On November 4, they released almost 2,000 kilograms of fish fries into the area.

On November 28, over 90,000 migratory birds were found to have come to winter in Changdu. The plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain received over 3,000 migratory birds, including white cranes, white-head cranes, white-naped cranes, and oriental storks.

To make the guests from far away feel at home, Jiangxi province has supplemented a total of 6.1 million cubic meters of water to plate-shaped water areas in Poyang Lake this year. A total of 130,000 mu of old marsh grass have been mowed, 5,370 mu of “canteen” have been set out, and 51,000 kilograms of grains have been reserved as food for migratory birds.

The crane dances in the Poyang Lake. Thousands of birds fly happily. The scenery is as beautiful as it was.

Safeguard coward wild animal “friends”

Photo by Li Yankuo

“Look! The infrared camera we set on the island covered by grass captured the image of a water deer.”

On December 5, in the building of the College of Life Sciences, Jiangxi Normal University, Professor Li Yankuo, an expert on water deer, showed pictures of the animal very excitedly.

As many areas in the Poyang Lake dried up earlier than normal years, the marsh grass sprouted too early and will soon grow too old. To ensure that there is enough tender grass for Anatidae migratory birds to eat, Jiangxi forestry department rolled out operations to mow the marsh grass.

“We fixed 6 infrared cameras at a location where the marsh grass has been mowed. We didn’t expect that they would capture images of water deer that came to seek food on just the second day. On November 23, they captured water deer again,” he said.

Water deer are under grade two national protection. In the wet season, they live in the forest. In the dry season, they come back to the wetland. It’s a major index species for the wetland. The Poyang Lake is one of the major distribution areas for water deer. Among wild animals that are endemic to wetlands in the Poyang Lake, water deer is the land mammal under the highest level of protection. Statistics in 2021 show that there are over 2,300 water deer in Poyang Lake.

What makes Li worry is that the water deer are quite timid. Once spooked, they will run in all directions to escape. Originally, they liked islands covered by marsh grass, as such islands can offer them food as well as shelter. The finding of water deer in areas where the marsh grass has been mowed indicates that the drought has changed their usual environment.

“Failing to find enough food, they have no choice but to take the risk to seek food here and there,” he said.

Li launched research on water deer in 2015. Joining hands with the office of the demonstration program for wetland protection systems of Global Environment Facility in Jiangxi province, he carried out surveys of water deer in Poyang Lake three times in May 2020, March 2021, and September 2021. He also released nine artificially bred water deer back into the wild.

With the help of satellite positioning facilities, he found that the number of water deer rising quickly because of the increasingly intensified efforts to protect the species in the Poyang Lake and decreasing poaching activities.

Actually, though water deer are not as noted as the Yangtze finless porpoise and white crane, the protection of the animal has been a key part of the work of the administration of the Jiangxi Poyang Lake National Natural Reserve.

On October 20, the administration rolled out the first survey for water deer during the dry season in 2022. Based on a survey approach that combines sample plot investigation and infrared camara monitoring, the administration managed to figure out the distribution areas of the water deer and their population. The work is expected to offer scientific support for the administration to hammer out further plans to protect the species.

In accordance with monitoring in recent years, Li recently completed a plan for the monitoring and protection of water deer. He included his suggestions in the plan: To carry out regular monitoring, enhance publicity for the animal’s protection, set up zones where hunting is forbidden, and also an annual effective period for the ban and roll out of joint governance with local communities to bring the water deer under effective scientific protection.

The smile of the Yangtze finless porpoise, the singing of the migratory birds that come to winter, the image of the smart water deer, as well as many other grass and tree rare poultry and animals; all of them have demonstrated the beauty of rich biodiversity.

This is our Poyang Lake, a water body that brings people tender feelings and a beauty which can hardly be described. This is the poetic homeland we inhabit together…

This is the significance of our efforts to safeguard it.