41.Wildlife
|
|
Activities
Wildlife
Beijing is an intensely urban environment
with a population of over 17 million people living in a dense
concentration of courtyards, hutongs and modern high rises. Even so,
there are opportunities to see and enjoy wildlife both within the city
and in the surrounding areas.
Many of Beijing’s popular parks have
enclosures with peacocks and other birds. One of the largest enclosures
is at Xiangshan Park (where) which has a huge collection of birds. In
Taoranting Park (where) visitors can see uncaged peacocks roaming
freely.
Just outside Beijing in the southern
marshes is Milu Park (Milu Yuan), an ecological research center located
in an area where emperors used to hunt deer, pheasants and rabbits.
Visitors come to see the Pere David deer (milu) which were hunted to
near extinction by the end of the Qing dynasty. Milu were reintroduced
to China in 1985 from the descendents of a small collection of deer that
had been taken to Europe in the 1800s. The milu population is now
gradually recovering and some have returned to the wild in the areas
around the park. The marshes of Milu Yuan are also a wonderful place to
see migratory birds. The World Extinct Wildlife Cemetery in the park is
thought-provoking.
Red-crowned Cranes
Other areas around Beijing where visitors
can see wild animals and birds are the Song Shan Forest Tourist Area, a
forested nature reserve in Zhang Shan Ying, and the Tao Yuan Xian
Valley Natural Scenic Area near the village of Shi Cheng. Some of the
forested areas around Beijing are home to snakes, including the banded
red snake and the poetically-named tiger-striped neck groove snake.
The Beijing Wildlife Park has established
an earthquake monitoring system using the behavior of some of the
animals in the park to predict impending seismic activity.
The Beijing Zoo, Beijing Aquarium and the Blue Zoo are also places to see animals and birds in the area around Beijing.
Komentar
Posting Komentar