More than 1,200 hooded cranes have migrated to the Zha Long Natural Reserve in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province in northeast China this autumn, indicating the environmental improvement of the creature's habitat, according to experts.
The Hooded crane is on the verge of extinction and has been listed as one of China's most protected creatures. Some of the cranes reproduce in Russia and migrate to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River when winter arrives.
The Zha Long Natural Reserve, a key migration stop-off site for the cranes, was only inhabited by about 200 hooded cranes in the past. But workers in Zha Long found several hundred hooded cranes here last autumn and over 1,000 cranes on October 14 this year.
The increase in hooded cranes migrating to China shows that local protection measures have achieved some effects. Both reproducing bases and migration stations in China have prepared better living conditions now for the creature, Chinese ornithologists said.
(People’s Daily 10/28/2000)
