June 5th has arrived again. For those who care about ecology and animal protection, this day is not only World Environment Day but also an important day - the fourth anniversary of the upgrade of pangolin protection. On June 5, 2020, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration issued a notice, adjusting the pangolin from a national second-level protected wild animal to a national first-level protected wild animal, meaning that the pangolin has since received the most stringent protection.

Four years have passed. What changes have occurred in the life of the pangolin? Let's travel together to Wuqinzhang in Guangdong, the largest habitat for Chinese pangolins in mainland China, to explore the past and present of the pangolin, understand the stories behind their protection, and the effectiveness and value that technology brings to pangolin protection.

From Legend to Reality

Technological Tools "Make Dreams Come True"

"This should be a male pangolin. Look at its relatively large size, I estimate it weighs about ten pounds." Ecological environmental protection expert and director of the Xizijiang Ecological Conservation Center, Li Cheng, stands on a temporary "step" made of wooden sticks attached to a tree, reviewing the camera footage attached to the tree. Nowadays, he has become calmer when seeing captured pangolins, as this has become an increasingly common occurrence over the past few years.

Initially, the presence of pangolins in Wuqinzhang was just a legend. Although villagers often saw pangolins in the mountains when they were young, they gradually became harder to find, and pangolins became rumors. In 2018, after a villager discovered traces疑似indicating the presence of pangolins, Li Cheng, who loves ecological environmental protection, immediately came to investigate. However, he did not see any pangolins but instead found numerous poaching traps all over the mountain, stepping on several of them himself. "At that time, I felt that I had to start doing something immediately, or it might really be too late in another year or two."

Therefore, Li Cheng quit his high-paying job and founded the Xizijiang Ecological Conservation Center, with the mission of protecting China's biodiversity. Under the guidance of the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau, he began protecting pangolins and their habitat in Wuqinzhang. By installing infrared cameras to build an intelligent monitoring system, he finally captured footage of a pangolin entering a hole on the last day of 2018 - turning legend into reality. Over the past six years, pangolins have gone from being captured sporadically to becoming "regulars" in the footage, making Li Cheng and the pangolins seem like the most familiar "strangers." "Often, I patrol a certain spot one day, and the next day there is a pangolin passing by. It feels like we keep missing each other."

Li Cheng and the pangolin "missing each other" at the same monitoring spot, camera footage provided by the Xizijiang Ecological Conservation Center

Hikvision STAR Technology Charity, in collaboration with the Alashan SEE Pearl River Project Center, Beijing Entrepreneur Environmental Protection Foundation, and the Xizijiang Conservation Center, has also installed a batch of wildlife protection cameras in Wuqinzhang. Using PIR infrared technology with millisecond-level triggering, the cameras automatically capture animal photos and record short videos. Combined with the intelligent monitoring system for wild animals and plants built on the GHD Animal and Plant Observation Cloud Platform, Li Cheng and his colleagues can conveniently and efficiently view the field situation on their phones. "When an animal is captured, a reminder will pop up on my phone. The last time I received a reminder, I opened it and saw a pangolin just about to enter a hole," said Li Cheng.

Although the intelligent monitoring system has continuously "encountered" pangolins, in the six years of protecting pangolins, Li Cheng has only seen a wild pangolin up close once, joking that it was "harder than winning the lottery." He cannot forget the only time he faced a pangolin mother and baby face-to-face, witnessing the tenderness of the pangolin and the power of species continuation firsthand. "I am proud to protect the pangolin and this common home of all creatures. I believe that the next face-to-face encounter should not be far away!"

Technology Assists in "Decrypting" the Pangolin

Efficiently Understanding and Protecting the Ecology of Wuqinzhang

Why have pangolins become scarce? Behind this is the long-term mythologization of the effects of pangolin scales and the greed for wild delicacies, leading to massive hunting of pangolins. Over the past few decades, the number of Chinese pangolins has decreased by 90%, making them not only a first-level key protected wild animal in China but also an extremely endangered species listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Their scarcity and lack of field research pose challenges to research and protection, and obtaining more data is crucial.

"To find pangolins, one must become a pangolin oneself to effectively discover their tracks and understand their living habits." When he first arrived in Wuqinzhang, Li Cheng and his partners spent more than a year just walking through the mountains. The hardships and exhaustion were secondary, but the important thing was that relying solely on manual patrols was difficult to efficiently collect data on pangolins and even more difficult to scientifically protect their habitats.

Fortunately, technology can "traverse the mountains" more efficiently - the intelligent monitoring system has become a powerful helper for Li Cheng and his partners. "Through monitoring in recent years, we have found that pangolins play a crucial role in the forest ecosystem." For example, a 3-kilogram pangolin can consume 300-400 grams of termites at a time, protecting 17 hectares of forest.

Pangolins collect grass to make their holes more comfortable, footage provided by the Xizijiang Ecological Conservation Center

In addition to predating on termites, pangolin burrows also provide shelter for many other wild animals in the forest. A Chinese pangolin can dig about 50 burrows on average per year. Without the large number of abandoned burrows of Chinese pangolins, many snakes would not have suitable overwintering sites, rodents would not have places to store food, and small and medium-sized carnivores would not have shelters from the wind and rain. Therefore, protecting pangolins is equivalent to protecting the entire ecosystem.

A pangolin baby holds its mother's tail to enter the hole, footage provided by the Xizijiang Ecological Conservation Center

Continuous patrols, protection, and ecological restoration are gradually improving the survival situation of pangolins. "We have found that the capture rate of pangolins is increasing, and we have also found that there are more and more of their burrows, with their range of activities continuously expanding," said Li Cheng.

In addition to pangolins, the intelligent monitoring system also records other species. This year, Wuqinzhang also recorded the near-threatened animal, the white-browed hill partridge, for the first time and continues to monitor rare animals such as black storks, Chinese serows, leopard cats, otters, and various turtles and tortoises, providing valuable data support for the study of the entire ecology of Wuqinzhang.

Li Cheng said, "Today's public welfare is increasingly combining technology, warmth, and wisdom. Technology has opened up more imagination for us. The participation of forces from all walks of life has also turned imagination into reality." The person in charge of Hikvision STAR Technology Charity also stated that it will continue to provide technical support in the future, including wildlife protection cameras, handheld thermal imaging observation instruments, pangolin intelligent analysis systems, human-animal conflict monitoring systems, and other intelligent IoT products and technologies. These will help with pangolin monitoring and protection, the prosperity and continuation of species in Wuqinzhang, and the thriving community ecology.