This interesting animal New Year short film was filmed and produced by Qi Xinzhang, who is 40 years old and comes from Qinghai. He is the deputy director of Xining Wildlife Park and the deputy director of Qinghai Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Center.
Qi Xinzhang also has another identity, an animal science popularization blogger. For more than ten years, he has created many interesting animal science videos. He insists on using short videos and novels to let more people understand the wild animals of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from different perspectives. Harvest attracted the attention of millions of fans across the country.
Qi Xinzhang is busy filming and making New Year short films for the animals in the garden. Snow leopards "Big Tiger" and "Ling Shuang" are the "celebrity couple" in Xining Wildlife Park, and they are also the love protagonists in Qi Xinzhang's shots.
Qi Xinzhang: Through surveillance, I saw the two of them rubbing each other's necks across the iron cage. In the language of animals, this means that I am showing you my vitals to express that I do not regard you as a threat and that I want to be friendly with you. Swap the cages to let them get familiar with each other's taste. After more than two months, we felt that the time was ripe to close the cages in the cage.
At the Xining Wildlife Park at that time, "snow leopards in cages" was a new attempt. Qi Xinzhang discovered that the snow leopards "Dahu" and "Lingshuang" often had some interesting behaviors when they got along, and he recorded these clips with his camera.
Qi Xin Zhang: Dahu takes a step forward and he roars. After trying a few times, Dahu felt that it was a bit boring. He would turn around and walk away without giving him any food. Then he just turned around, Before his claws could move, Guang turned his head. Ling Shuang stretched out his claws and pressed down on its hand. Don't leave.
Qi Xinzhang edited the filmed materials into short videos and posted them on the Internet platform. Unexpectedly, the love story of the snow leopards "Big Tiger" and "Ling Shuang" attracted more and more attention from netizens.
The enthusiasm and attention of tourists made Qi Xinzhang realize that some clever ways can effectively enhance people's understanding of animals, and he might be able to become the link between people and animals. As a result, he began to put more effort into shooting and producing various interesting videos.
Qi Xinzhang, who was born in Baoding, Hebei Province, has always had a soft spot for animals. In 2002, he was admitted to Qinghai University as an undergraduate majoring in environmental science, and later he chose to pursue a graduate degree in animal nutrition and feed science. After graduation, Qi Xinzhang came to work at Xining Wildlife Park. In the process of contacting tourists, he found that many people knew very little about plateau wild animals such as desert cats and lynxes.
Qi Xinzhang: Native species on the Tibetan Plateau have little visibility and influence, which restricts their access to more conservation resources. So at that time, I wanted to speak out for the native species on the Tibetan Plateau through publicity and popular science, to expand its visibility and influence, and let more people know, understand, pay attention to, and care about these species.
In order to allow tourists to remember these plateau animals more clearly, Qi Xinzhang and his colleagues also gave the animals names. Behind each name is the animal's own personality and story.
Qi Xinzhang: Starting from the first snow leopard Ling Shuang we rescued in 2017, all the snow leopards we rescued have the surname Ling. On the one hand, Ling itself has the original meaning of ice and snow, which is closer to the snow leopard. In addition, Ling also means to cross over or cross over. Therefore, we feel that the snow leopards who are rescued have encountered a hurdle in their lives. We hope it crosses over. The second word comes from the twenty-four solar terms in traditional Chinese culture. Most of them are named like this. For example, when Lingshuang rescues people, the time is close to Shuangdang, and when Lingzhe rescues, the time is close to Jingzhe.
In addition to the snow leopard, there are many animals with surnames in the garden. The desert cats are named Huang Gongzi and Miss Huang; the rabbits and cats are all named 狲; and the name of the female alpine vulture is even more shocking.
Qi Xinzhang: This is called Xiao Longnu. Because her husband has a broken wing.
Produced a "series" of rabbit breeding to convey persistence and love
The Xining Wildlife Park where Qi Xinzhang is located also has another name, Qinghai Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Center. Many of the animals here were rescued after being injured. Those animals that can be released are returned to nature after recovery; those that are not suitable for release are left there. A large part of Qi Xinzhang's work is the "rescue and breeding" of wild animals. He also films the rescue and breeding process, makes popular science videos and publishes them on online platforms, so that more people can understand and pay attention to wild animal protection.
The irregular release of recovered wild animals is part of the work of Qi Xinzhang and his colleagues.
Qi Xinzhang: What we are going to release today is an eagle owl and a great buzzard that we rescued at the end of last year. Both are birds of prey. After some training in the wild, we found that they have the ability to fly and hunt for prey. So today we plan to send them back home and return to the wild.
Every time he is released, Qi Xinzhang will take videos or do live science broadcasts at the release site.
For Qi Xinzhang and his colleagues, rescue and release are not the most difficult. The most difficult job they have ever experienced is the breeding of rabbit cats. To this end, Qi Xinzhang filmed and recorded the process of artificial breeding of rabbit cats over a year, and produced 121 episodes of a short video "serial".
Qi Xinzhang: The name of its series is "How difficult is it to breed rabbits?" Through this process, more people can get to know the monkeys like Dalang and Erlang who left this world before they could meet the public. The cute creatures were also greatly spread through this breeding event, which increased the popularity and influence of the rabbit cat. At that time, someone asked me why I named it Usaburo instead of using another name? My explanation at the time was that it had to be called Xi Sanlang, otherwise no one would remember Xi Dalang and Xi Erlang anymore.
On the Internet platform, netizens watch and look forward to the new chapter of the "series" of rabbit breeding, which is updated step by step. Everyone feels the thrill of every time together. Toxoplasmosis and feline distemper virus have threatened the breeding of rabbit cats. Watching the baby rabbits die due to illness, Qi Xinzhang and his colleagues are particularly tormented.
Qi Xinzhang: I was so desperate that I collapsed. I collapsed. I cried alone in the quilt at night, covering my head. Especially Xi Erniang and Xi Sanniang, they were raised by their mothers themselves. So when he was more than two or three months old, he often ran out of the house, was seen by many tourists, and appeared in many live broadcasts. So I was very unwilling to leave in obscurity. There was a doctor in the team sent from Beijing. He suffered from altitude sickness on the first day he arrived. He held an oxygen tank in one hand and placed it on his mouth and nose to relieve his altitude sickness. Then he bent down on the ground to observe the rabbit cub being rescued in the animal ICU.
In the 120th episode of Qi Xinzhang’s "serial series" on rabbit breeding, it was recorded that the rabbit was already over two years old at the time and was growing up healthily.
Qi Xinzhang: In general, we have experienced a lot of hardships and challenges this year. What makes us happy is that the rabbit survived and became the first artificially bred rabbit in our country, filling the country's Whitespace.
Use written words to record animal stories to encourage more volunteers to join
In addition to the series on the breeding of rabbits and cats, Qi Xinzhang also used his camera to record the rescue and release of lynxes, and also produced a series called "Battle of Lynx Crossing the River" ". The lynx wearing the satellite collar was called "Teletubbies" by Qi Xinzhang. After its release, in order to confirm its living conditions, Qi Xinzhang also went into the mountains with scientific researchers to look for traces of "Teletubbies".
Qi Xinzhang: I have been thinking about it since I went up the mountain, how much I want to see it, but the rational voice in my head keeps telling myself, don’t think about it, a lynx is everywhere on such a huge hillside. A bush over one meter high. Do you still want to see it? That is impossible.
However, to everyone's surprise, Qi Xinzhang and the others met the lynx "Teletubbies" in the mountains.
Qi Xinzhang: I turned on the satellite data and took a look. It went down the mountain from where we went down the mountain, crossed the river from where we crossed the river, and chased it to a small ridge beside the highway where we left. The road was only a few hundred meters, less than a kilometer. I squatted there for two hours and watched the cars on the road. At 2 a.m., I returned from the mountain to where it originally lived. It remembers us, we came to see it, it knows. So I decided that this story must be turned into a book, and I wanted to record it forever.
Writing down stories about animals is another way for Qi Xinzhang to record and disseminate animal-related information. He also hopes to attract more people to participate in plateau animal protection work.
Aoxue is the first artificially bred snow leopard in Xining Wildlife Park. Qi Xinzhang wrote Aoxue's story into a novel of more than 40,000 words in the first person. After the novel was published on the Internet, it attracted many netizens to read and update it.
Qi Xinzhang: In the way of writing a diary, it records its process from birth until it grows up to over 1 year old. Because you may have seen a little snow leopard, but you don’t know how the little snow leopard grows up and what things it will experience in its life? This includes illness, leaving his mother, and the death of his sister, all of which are recorded here.
As Qi Xinzhang’s short videos and text stories continue to be updated, more and more netizens have begun to pay attention to the wildlife on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and many tourists have contributed to the publicity of animal protection.
Qi Xinzhang: After they got to know these animals, they began to like them, and then came to visit them, took a lot of photos and videos of them, and then posted them on the Internet. In fact, they are helping us expand the popularity and influence of this species invisibly.
Nowadays, more and more volunteers have joined Qi Xinzhang and his team, and everyone organizes and participates in offline knowledge sharing meetings to pass on more popular science knowledge.
"May more animals be remembered, loved and protected"
In the Xining Wildlife Park, the staff will use water pipes to make swings for the red pandas and dig stones to build rockeries for the blue sheep. The nameplates of animals are not about their simple attributes, but about each baby's personality, habits and daily trends, full of love. Through videos and live broadcasts, Qi Xinzhang’s efforts have allowed more people to understand these wild animals. Let people remember them and love them even more.
"May more animals be remembered, loved and protected", this is what Qi Xinzhang often says. At the entrance of Xining Wildlife Park and on the video account, Qi Xinzhang posted a quote from zoologist Jane Goodall that he often quoted - "Only when you understand can you care; only when you care can you act." "Only through action can there be hope." This is indeed the case. Because of love, if more people understand, care and act, our future will be more promising.
(CCTV News Client)
