Rating 9.3! Probably the best domestic documentary this year

The Chinese white dolphin, a mammal at the top of the marine food chain, lives in shallow waters about 10 meters deep along the coast of China. It is one of the few cetaceans in the world that lives only in shallow waters .

The third month of the lunar calendar is when fishermen start to worship Mazu, and white dolphins become active. It is said that white dolphins can fight sharks, and the bay guarded by white dolphins will be very safe. Therefore, they are also considered to be the incarnation of Mazu and are called "Mazu fish" .

On this day, fishermen found the body of a white dolphin at sea. When they found it, the tail of the white dolphin was gone, and the cut was very neat. The staff speculated that it might have been broken by the propeller.

When the abdominal cavity was opened, everyone was stunned, because there was a baby dolphin that had not yet fully grown in the belly of this white dolphin . The baby dolphin's body was bent, maintaining the state in the mother's belly, with its eyes closed, as if it was asleep. It will come out of its mother's belly in three or four months, but it will never see the world again.

This sad scene comes from the B station documentary "Land of the Gods", which has a Douban score of 9.3 and is called by countless netizens: "The best domestic documentary this year."

The chief director is Zeng Hairuo, and the voice actor is Liu Cong.

Friends who like documentaries must be familiar with these two names. Another documentary that can also be called "God-like" is "The Third Pole", which was also created by Zeng Hairuo.

Liu Cong can be said to be a "documentary professional", having dubbed "Dynasty", "Big Cats: Ultimate Predator", "Land of Blue"... The audio-visual lineup alone is an ultimate enjoyment from the eyes to the ears.

Land of the Gods, what are the “Gods”?

The director team defines it this way: In nature, every species has its place. These animals at the top of the food chain are the most ingenious design of this land.

They were once the totems of civilization and the bridge between humans and nature. Their breathing and heartbeats conveyed magical messages from heaven and earth.

The documentary chooses the Tibetan wild yaks, Chinese white dolphins, Asian elephants, and Siberian tigers, which have been revered as "sacred beasts" in history, as the protagonists of the story, telling the current fate of different wild animals in the collision between man and nature .

1. Game

According to legend, when the world's first ray of sunshine shone on Mount Kailash, the first yak appeared.

When the Tibetan ancestors first landed on the plateau, they could not find a foothold and asked the mountain god for help. The mountain god divided the wild yaks into two factions. One part went down the mountain to help the Tibetans, carrying heavy objects, contributing their wool and milk, and became the current "domestic yaks". The other part continued to stay in the mountain, maintaining the survival habits from ancient times, and are still "wild yaks."

"Domestic yaks" and "wild yaks" constitute two very important links in the lives of herdsmen.

Long-term reproduction has caused the size and disease resistance of domestic yaks to seriously degenerate, making them unable to adapt to the harsh winter on the plateau. Herders urgently need to find ways to improve the genes of the population.

They met two wild yaks with very different personalities - "Broken Horn" and "Kunlun".

"Broken Horn" is a 17-year-old wild yak with a gentle temperament. He is a "friend" and "son-in-law" of the ranch owner Jiang Cai.

During the mating season, the "broken horns" would skillfully jump to Jiang Cai's pasture to mate with domestic female yaks. After the wild yaks and domestic yaks mate, the price of the hybrid yaks will double, "can be sold for 20,000 to 30,000 yuan", which has increased Jiang Cai's income a lot.

Compared with Jiang Cai, Zhida was not so lucky because he met "Kunlun" who was in his prime.

"Kunlun" has a much larger body, stronger muscles and harder horns than domestic yaks. Neither the domestic yaks nor its owner Zhida can resist it.

So, "Kunlun" took charge of the yak herd.

It mated with domestic female yaks and tried to bring the entire yak herd back to the wild. In the second year, although "Kunlun" did not appear, two new wild yaks came.

Zhida had no choice but to organize a team and attack the wild yaks with stones, and the wild yaks fled halfway up the hillside.

Just when people thought the standoff was finally over and trading was resumed, something unexpected happened again. A mixed-race yak that was tied up with a rope seemed to have suddenly awakened its wild genes and struggled desperately. "Kunlun", who had been watching from a distance, also rushed down the mountain aggressively, as if wanting to rescue it.

But for some reason, Kunlun suddenly stopped a hundred meters away from Xiaoniu, retreated and left. Xiaoniu was eventually killed by the transport truck .

In recent years, with large-scale grazing, the distance between people and wild yaks has become closer and closer, and problems have followed.

Although wild yaks can help herders improve the genes of domestic yaks, they often take away some domestic yaks. The genes of domestic yaks will affect the purity of wild yak genes, and the diseases of domestic yaks will also cause irresistible blows to the wild yak population.

No one knows what the future outcome of this game will be.

2. Death

It's not just yaks. In fact, almost all wild animals are facing the problem of their living space being squeezed and destroyed by humans . This impact is even more fatal to large wild animals.

I don’t know if you still remember the story that in 2020, 15 Asian elephants originally living in the Nameng Yangzi Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna suddenly left their habitat and headed north.

"Land of the Gods" recorded the fate of another similar elephant herd - " China's most dangerous elephant herd ".

There are more than a dozen elephants in the herd, with the leader being "Sutoduo" ("perfect elephant" in Dai language), also known as "Wu Zetian" by the locals, and the eldest being "Atijiduo" ("king" in Dai language), the second, third, fourth, etc.

Among them, the eldest, the second and the third adult male elephants are of the same generation, and the newly born elephants are all descendants of the eldest.

In 2007, this group of elephants also escaped from the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve of the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Management Bureau, crossed the Lancang River, and migrated around. The new hydropower dams and highways cut off their way home, and they completely lost contact with other families .

Having been trapped for many years and unable to see other elephant groups, the male elephants that are about to reach adulthood cannot find mates. How to reproduce has become their biggest problem .

When the estrus season arrives, the duel is about to begin.

The newly-adult "Old Four" challenged the provocative "Old Two", but unfortunately he was still too young and did not have enough strength to defeat his predecessor. "Old Four" kept retreating and called for help from his father, the current "Big One" of the herd.

No one expected that the "boss" looked at this scene and turned away.

"This is almost a decision that goes against the rules of the animal world."

In nature, few male elephants will voluntarily give up control of their herd. People speculate: " Perhaps, it is for the health of the family to continue ."

But even if the "boss" made this decision, the elephant herd still had no future.

Because the "big brother" was still there, the female elephants refused to submit to the "unjustified" "second brother", and the elephant herd was torn apart, and no baby elephants were born since then.

The Chinese white dolphin also sees no way out.

Many people marvel at the spectacular sight of a group of white dolphins forming a circle and chasing human fishing boats, but they don't know that this is actually because the food that the white dolphins can catch near the coast is getting less and less, so they have to take the risk of approaching fishing boats.

Chinese white dolphins accompanying a fishing boat

However, getting close to fishing boats means countless " fatal dangers " such as tangled fishing nets and sharp propellers.

At the same time, various human production activities such as offshore bridge construction, sand dredging, land reclamation, and the sound of ship engines also seriously interfere with the white dolphins' sonar detection system, causing them to mistakenly go inland.

Stranded Chinese white dolphin

As for the rescue of white dolphins, there are very few successful rescues, in large part because we still know very little about these "elves of the ocean".

Why does the body color of white dolphins change from gray and black to white as they age?

Why do some white dolphins appear together regularly?

What do the different sounds made by white dolphins mean?

…

But will there still be a chance to know these?

Chinese white dolphin specimen

3. Hope?

Fortunately, when it comes to “how to coexist with wild animals”, we don’t always get a “0” answer.

In the last Year of the Tiger in the 20th century, due to deforestation and war, it was almost confirmed that there were no breeding populations of Siberian tigers in China.

In order to recreate the scene of " tigers in every mountain ", villagers, forest rangers and scientific researchers work together to restore a habitat suitable for the Siberian tiger, bit by bit.

First, the red pine forest, which maintains the lifeblood of this land, is responsible for providing shelter and food:

Then there are the "natives" of this forest, such as chipmunks, wood frogs, and long-tailed wood owls, which are becoming more and more numerous and common:

In late autumn, when people collect mountain products, they no longer just take them endlessly. They leave some holly as food for animals during the winter.

As the ecological chain of the entire forest gradually recovered, finally, in the first Year of the Tiger in the 21st century, a female tiger named "October" appeared in the research team's sight.

"The settlement of female tigers really means that tigers will have a future. "

After 12 years, the Siberian tiger returns.

Different from BBC documentaries which often only record from the perspective of an observer, the "people" in "Land of the Gods" are very vivid.

In the view of director Zeng Hairuo:

" Observing these animals is actually a mirror for looking at the current human situation ."

As a nature documentary, "Land of the Gods" does not intend to criticize human activities, nor does it shout slogans asking everyone to protect the environment.

More important than these are:

"If we want to resolve conflicts and coexist with wild animals and nature, we have to understand them, know who they are, what they think and what they do ."

Source: Science Popularization China