Boy puts "Seagull" into glass bottle? Fined 2000!

Recently, at the Haigeng Dam next to Dianchi Lake in Kunming, Yunnan, a little boy, with the help of his parents, tried to put a seagull into a glass bottle and take it away . After the video was uploaded to the Internet, it attracted a lot of attention.

The boy’s guardian was fined 2,000 yuan for involving “three-protected” wild animals｜The Paper

Red-billed gull, a protected species

The "seagull" in the video is actually a red-billed gull. In 2000, the red-billed gull was included in the "National List of Terrestrial Wildlife with Important Economic and Scientific Research Values", which is what we often call " three-protected animals ".

Red-billed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) | Charles J. Sharp

According to the Wildlife Protection Law, if anyone illegally hunts non-nationally protected wildlife in a nature reserve without catching anything, he or she will be fined between 2,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan. The seagull-catching incident did not meet the standards for filing a criminal case, and was ultimately handed over to the Xishan District Natural Resources Bureau of Kunming City for handling. The Natural Resources Bureau criticized and educated the guardian of the boy involved, and fined him or her 2,000 yuan.

The red-billed gull is one of the most common gulls in Eurasia. Its beaks and legs are red , with striking light-colored parts on the leading edges of its wings, and its white head often has a distinct black spot behind its eyes. The red-billed gull breeds in a vast area in northern Eurasia and winters in many places in eastern and central China and south of the Yellow River. Therefore, in China, they are the gulls most likely to be called "seagulls."

The plumage of red-headed gulls is obviously different during the breeding season (left) and wintering season (right) | Hans Hillewaert & PierreSelim / wikimedia

True gulls (Larus canus), whose beaks and legs are often yellow-green. | Donna A. Dewhurst DI-Dewhurst, D-MEGU2

Kunming’s winter business card

Nowadays, red-billed gulls have become a business card of Kunming. If you go to Kunming this season, you can easily see them over large and small water bodies in the city. There are also a large number of tourists feeding red-billed gulls near water bodies such as Dianchi Lake and Cuihu Lake in the urban area.

The red-headed gulls were frequent visitors to the Dianchi Lake in winter, but they flew to the central urban area of ​​Kunming in November 1985. People analyzed that the relatively clean water and edible debris discarded by humans in the urban area were very attractive to the red-headed gulls because of the worsening pollution of the Dianchi Lake and the reduction of food sources due to overfishing.

Relatively clean water and food are very attractive to red-headed gulls | TuChong Creative

Later, Kunming established the Red-billed Gull Conservation Association (today's Kunming Bird Association) to organize and coordinate scientific researchers and the public to carry out scientific research, publicity and artificial feeding activities related to red-billed gulls. In 2005, the China Wildlife Conservation Association awarded Kunming the title of " Hometown of Chinese Red-billed Gulls " to praise and encourage the city's attention and investment in the protection of red-billed gulls over the years.

Through long-term banding work , researchers have found that some of the red-billed gulls that spend the winter in Kunming come from faraway Siberia . The red-billed gulls migrate to Kunming in early October every year, stay in the waters of Dianchi Lake for about a month, and then gradually enter the urban area; they migrate northward from mid-March to mid-April of the following year, and also leave the urban area and stay in Dianchi Lake for about a month before starting their journey northward.

Don't catch or feed

When faced with these bird friends who have come from afar, it is certainly wrong to catch them and stuff them into glass bottles, while feeding them to them by a large number of tourists also poses hidden dangers.

There is not much natural food for red-headed gulls in urban waters, so they stay in urban areas. Artificial feeding is the key factor. Since November 2006, several red-headed gull food sales points have been set up around Cuihu Lake in Kunming City, where tourists can buy or bring their own food to feed the red-headed gulls.

Interestingly, according to observations, the length of time the red-billed gulls stay in Cuihu Lake is clearly correlated to the intensity of feeding - for example, during the Chinese New Year's Eve, there are very few sales outlets open and tourists feeding the gulls, so the red-billed gulls' stay in Cuihu Lake will be longer; conversely, if there are more people feeding the gulls, the full red-billed gulls will leave early and return to Dianchi Lake .

But feeding is not good for birds, people or the environment｜TuChong Creative

However, whether it is feeding in Dianchi Lake or in urban waters, this "interaction between people and gulls" is not as harmonious as it seems. Experimental studies have shown that compared with the bread, special feed, cabbage and other foods used in artificial feeding, red-headed gulls prefer to eat more natural animal foods such as loaches, small fish and shrimps. In other words, the food provided by people may not be the most suitable for red-headed gulls .

Secondly, a lot of food residues and feces discharged by a large number of flocking red-headed gulls from artificial feeding directly enter the water bodies of Cuihu Lake and Caohai (the inner sea of ​​Dianchi Lake). Studies have shown that the total phosphorus content of the bottom mud of Cuihu Lake is 7,950 times that of the total phosphorus content of the water body, which is much higher than that of famous eutrophic lakes such as Taihu Lake and West Lake. The pollution problem caused by artificial and disorderly feeding of red-headed gulls cannot be underestimated .

Food residues and feces from artificial feeding of red-headed gulls directly enter Cuihu Lake and Caohai Lake, causing water pollution｜TuChong Creative

Moreover, the contact between a large number of black-headed gulls and dense crowds poses a potential risk of disease transmission . Black-headed gulls have been proven to be able to carry avian influenza viruses and other pathogens.

We cannot only see the so-called "harmonious coexistence of humans and seagulls" and ignore the huge public health and safety risks behind the appearance.

Author: Birdman Robbi, Mai Mai

Edit: Small towel

Cover image source: Charles J. Sharp

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