Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl-Chapter 334 - 332: Better to Exchange Tiger for Tiger

"Not only are they present, but this litter of water otters is especially mischievous."

"How so?"

"Come, you’ll see once you look."

Old Gao led him towards the water, where the Water Otter Mother, unable to intimidate, herded her children to hide in the water.

But clearly, mother’s education was a bit of a failure; three little water otters agilely evaded her and waddled over to bump into Chen Ying.

They bumped into his shoes and then collapsed to the ground, gazing up at him expectantly.

With practiced ease, Old Gao scooped one up to pet.

Chen Ying picked up the remaining two.

The Water Otter Mother, beside herself with anger, was barking and jumping around, but what could she do? Even jumping couldn’t reach the two-legged beast’s knees, so in a fit of rage, she just had to get mad for a moment before turning and diving into the water to calm herself with the out-of-sight-out-of-mind technique.

The vegetation environment in low-altitude areas is very different from that in high-altitude areas.

Even in winter, with similarly low temperatures, Jiamu Gully still boasts evergreen vegetation all year round.

Parting the water grass beside the stream, discarded eggshells were revealed.

"What is this? There are birds hatching eggs so early?"

"Hatching eggs my foot," Old Gao cursed with a chuckle, "These bird eggs have all been victimized by these little water otters."

Had it been any other animal doing such harm to the eggs, Old Gao might not have intervened but would have cursed vehemently and even secretly thought of a way to get rid of the egg thief.

But when the thief is replaced by three adorable creatures, it’s a bit more difficult to take action.

To be fair, these three little guys didn’t steal any egg they saw; they knew to take turns, only stealing one or two from each nest and even switched places to steal.

But to come back to it, even without little egg thieves, there were quite a few bird eggs that could not hatch each year.

In addition to being preyed on by animals, the loss of eggs due to nest fights among the birds is also not a small number.

After releasing the three little ones back to their mother, Old Gao began to explain to Chen Ying.

"Since your last visit there, another earthquake hit the dammed lake, altering the original river course and, along with this stream that originally started from melted snow and ice from the mountains, has kept the water flowing from winter on."

The gully’s stream didn’t always maintain such a high volume of water, especially in previous years when the vegetation was poor, and almost no water flowed from autumn to the following summer.

With several outflows from the upstream dammed lake, their outlet is a bit higher, and when the lake water level was insufficient, the stream would dry up.

Now with a partial collapse at the outlet, the water has been redirected this way.

"The geological activity seems to be occurring too frequently these two years."

"Can’t help it, that’s Mother Nature for you," Old Gao shrugged, "But people from above did go to check it out, and geological survey teams have been there too. The situation is alright, many small changes but hardly any major ones."

With their area located on a fault zone and affected by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’s fold belt, if there were ever a time without any earth movement, that’s when everyone would truly start to worry.

On the way back, they casually discussed the recent events in Jiamu Gully.

For a mature sanctuary, apart from continuous maintenance, there wasn’t much they needed to do.

"By the way, the department conducted a grid survey and found that the animal carrying capacity of Jiamu Gully is slightly large, but still within the acceptable range. They want to try implementing a reintroduction program here."

"Reintroduction? Reintroducing what?"

"Tigers."

"Aren’t there tigers here already, like that female tiger from the north that left?"

"That hasn’t happened, but aside from the confirmed sighting in the north, it’s still the same as what you saw last time in the northwest; no further signs of tiger presence were discovered."

Chen Ying thought for a moment and roughly understood what the leaders meant.

"Do they want to attract the tiger from the north to move south by releasing them into the wild? Then why not just release them directly in the south?"

"How do you know they haven’t tried?" Old Gao quipped, plucking a foxtail and putting it in his mouth, "Those sanctuaries to the south have been eyeing us here. The reintroduction plan was proposed by them, intending to use that female tiger to improve the gene pool of the captive-bred tigers."

No matter how well you rear them in captivity, they lack the wildness of the kings of the jungle.

They can barely survive on their own in the wild.

They certainly can’t expect tigers to take lessons from cats. Even if it worked, where would they find a cat capable of teaching a tiger?

But it’s different here at Jiamu Gully, where the presence of wild tigers is confirmed, allowing the captive-bred tigers to learn by following their example.

Of course, the best approach would be to raise them from a young age, and it would be even better if a wild tiger could take a captive-bred cub under its wing.

But that remains wishful thinking.

However, Chen Ying was truly moved by the idea.

"Old Gao, what do you think about us bringing back the two little tiger cubs to raise ourselves?"

Those two cubs were registered under his name, just fostered at the Wildlife Park. Since he had established a research project, fetching the two tigers would be justifiable.

"Those two little white tigers are Bengal Tigers; it would be better to find local cubs instead."

Chen Ying gently slapped his cheek, "I was mistaken. I should have contacted those zoos earlier to arrange a swap."

"Actually, it’s quite manageable. There are domestic units specialized in researching the breeding of white tigers. You should get in touch with them and see if an exchange could be possible. Even if it’s not, we could still try borrowing one."

This was a path to consider.

There were several domestic units researching Huanan Tigers, but their efforts had so far only expanded the captive population.

The next step was one that no unit dared to take lightly.

Releasing them into the wild wasn’t as simple as just putting them back out there.

The incident with Panda Xiangxiang was a painful, untouchable memory for all the conscientious people in the national treasure community.

Moreover, while there were still a considerable number of wild giant panda populations, the Huanan Tiger was truly gone once lost.

Even though Huanan Tigers had been sighted in the wild, no one really knew how many there were.

As they chatted, they found themselves back at the emergency aid station.

Old Gao’s juniors had hung all the artificial bird homes they had made under the eaves to air them out. When it got a bit warmer, they could go replace the ones that had broken or add new ones where needed to provide homes for the birds.

"This time we might go a bit further, planning to incorporate the area around Hot Spring Gully and the other end of Old Bear Gully."

Since they had established the observation and bird rescue stations here, they definitely had to do more.

Old Gao had just finished the project on the three major species of rainbow pheasants. Now he was considering whether to continue delving deeper or switch to a different topic.

Living comfortably in Jiamu Gully had made him a bit reluctant to move.

There were over a hundred kinds of birds in Jiamu Gully, and plenty of avian research topics to choose from, but the ones he wanted to work on were not the kind that he could just churn out a paper on.

"We’re going to adopt a grid-based management this year, and I’m planning not to apply for a project for now. I want to take a team to survey this area."

The area Old Gao referred to was between the deep mountain and the cultivated zones, consisting of forest edges, secondary forests, and economic forest areas.

He wanted to see how well the ecology of the forest edges had recovered after years of returning farmland to forests.

Chen Ying didn’t know much about their ornithology and botany, but having worked in wildlife conservation for so many years, he understood the interconnectedness of success and failure.

"Okay, when are you planning to head over there?"

Old Gao mentioning this was actually his way of encouraging Chen Ying to wrap up his work at River Source and settle down in Jiamu Gully.

"At the end of April, about until this September. Five months should be enough to complete the initial phase of the prep work."

"You’re planning on a big project, aren’t you?" Chen Ying playfully punched Old Gao’s shoulder.

"Of course, Ali is now heading up the station; next step he’ll be in the bureau’s leadership. Even though you don’t hold a position within the system, from the way Professor Bai puts it, it looks like you might get a position at the school once you’ve got your senior level title. If I don’t put in the effort, I might end up being the next Little Gao."

By evening, when Little Sen came back, his expression wasn’t great.

Chen Ying glanced at him and pulled him aside to ask what had happened.

"Nothing, Brother Ying, I’m just tired. I was with the TV crew all day, really worn out so I’m going to rest now."

Just then, Old Gao’s junior sister joined them.

This junior sister, just starting her master’s, was still new to the field.

"Brother Ying, Senior Brother, Brother Sen probably got mocked."

The young lady handed her phone to Chen Ying, showing the messaging group chat, where numerous messages had flooded in, all discussing one thing.

Apparently, the TV crew encountered Mendun’er and her three cubs taking a walk during filming.

Because the three cubs were familiar with Little Sen, they didn’t rush to hide upon seeing him.

It was because of this that one of the program’s guests doubted his professionalism.

"He went straight to social media to post a lengthy rant, saying that Brother Sen, being in this profession, should understand the importance of not getting too close to wild animals and not letting them trust humans too much. So he reckons that either Brother Sen was showing off his importance by deliberately getting close to the giant panda or that the leadership above hadn’t taken care of the details." novelbuddy.cσ๓

Chen Ying’s expression darkened, "Fine, if that’s how it is, then there’s no need to be considerate of them anymore."

They wanted to witness the noble and imposing presence of wild animals, so they would get a good look.

"Old Gao, I’m sorry to ask, but could you take a trip to the Wildlife Park with Little Sen tomorrow? Make sure to follow up on the Little White Tiger matter and see if we could get a couple of Huanan Tiger cubs transferred here."

"No problem, I’ve got a buddy who works over there. I’ll get in touch with him first."

Chen Ying called the publicity department at the center and stated bluntly that Little Sen had work to do the next day and couldn’t accompany the TV crew, advising them to make other arrangements.

The person wanted Chen Ying to step in, but he just laughed and told him to report back to the leaders first.

After hanging up, Chen Ying went upstairs to look for Little Sen.

Without offering much in the way of comfort, he told him to pack his things and join Old Gao on the trip tomorrow.

"You’ve already decided to specialize in the rearing of young animals, so you need to get involved with more related matters. I discussed a few things with Old Gao, you two should talk it over on the way and see if there’s anything else that needs to be done first."

Little Sen’s mood had been low, his eyes faintly red, but as soon as he received Chen Ying’s work assignment, he got right into gear.

He took notes on the tasks at hand and also outlined a schedule of his daily responsibilities, planning to ask Old Gao’s junior brother to cover for him for a couple of days.

"Why bother someone else? I’m still here." He took the schedule from Little Sen’s hands, snapped a photo, and handed it back.

"Stick this schedule on the whiteboard in the mixing room, and make a note in the work log too."

Little Sen often dealt with meticulous work, and without a detailed handover, he was worried about missing something.