A 15-year-old girl in Beijing uses an infrared camera to capture the figures of city elves such as hedgehogs, Mongolian rabbits, wild cats, etc.

While checking the red dots marked on the mobile phone map, Chen Yanyi led the way in front, and occasionally stopped and looked around, like animals under the forest, deciding which road to take away. "It's too big, it's easy to get lost."

From Jingxi Forest Farm to the south of the colorful clouds, from the East African grassland to the Amazon tropical rainforest... Chen Yanzhi, 15 years old this year, has visited many places at home and abroad to explore wild animals.

At present, she has viewed more than 1,500 birds. She is one of the "Swift Ambassadors" of the "Beijing Swift Protection Plan". She once told the migration path of swifts to a group of entrepreneurs including Pan Shiyi and shared the ideas of swift protection.

Now, she has launched the "Animals Around Us" project, hoping to capture magical wild animals hidden in hidden corners through infrared cameras, and influence more people to think about the relationship between cities and wild animals.

She also summarized some "beast photography experience", "In the deep mountains, there are many wild boars and roe deer, and there are also leopard cats, but fewer; there are more leopard cats in Wild Duck Lake and Miyun Reservoir; there are particularly many magpies in Orson, and 80% of the images taken are magpies, and there are also many weasels and hedgehogs."

Every time collecting camera data, Chen Yanzhi is like dismantling the doll "blind box", "You will never know what unexpected magical animals are in the data card you open."

▲Chen Yanzhi is checking the mobile phone map and looking for infrared camera monitoring points. Photo by Li Kaixiang, reporter of Beijing News

It is not easy to find a beast path in the urban area

Every time you look for a beast path, Chen Yanzhi would imagine that he was a little beast.

She can be a slow moving hedgehog, a smart and lively Mongolian rabbit, or a flashing little weasel. "In some dense woods, there will be shrubs under the forest. But animals do not like to pass through shrubs and are tired of walking. They usually choose some paths that have been stepped on by other animals." Chen Yan called this kind of path a beast path.

The animal's footprints, feces, and movement traces all helped her locate the animal path. Sometimes, looking around, the jungle is almost full of dense shrubs, and there is no sparse place to stay. But Chen Yanzhi could always use his eyes to "open up" a narrow animal path hidden under the leaves in the bushes. "If I were an animal, I would think this was a better path, and later I found that some animals did take this path."

Chen Yanzhi is 15 years old and is a junior high school student in Beijing. At the end of April this year, she launched the "Animals Around Us" project, raising funds to purchase infrared cameras, placed them around the animal paths in Beijing's urban areas and in the suburbs, and tied to trees, "to record and observe these wild animals, borrow these images, and intuitively tell people that there are still many wild animals in Beijing."

She hopes that more urban residents can regard wild animals as neighbors.

▲Chen Yanzhi (right), Guan Xiangyu (left), and "Little Tiger" (center) are watching the images exported by the infrared camera. Photo by Li Kaixiang, reporter of Beijing News

Since May 30, Chen Yanzhi has set up 14 infrared cameras in the four parts of Jingxi Forest Farm, Olympic Forest Park, Wild Duck Lake, and Phoenix Ridge, covering forest land, urban park, plains, wetlands, mountains and other natural landscapes. Up to now, the "Animals Around Us" project has photographed 12 species of animals and 13 species of birds including hedgehogs, Siberian roe roe cats, wild boars, weasels, and pheasants.

For Chen Yanzhi, searching for beasts and photographing animals in the city is not easy. Compared with the wild in the suburbs, the bushes in the city are relatively sparse. "Take Aosen Park as an example, there are no plants on the ground and are all dry soil. Animals can choose to walk many ways, so setting up cameras is largely a chance. Sometimes, except for magpies, no other animals were photographed."

At the same time, as a city park, Aosen's daily human footprints are everywhere, covering up the traces of animals. "The beast path is very inconspicuous." Infrared cameras are also often disturbed by human factors. "I put one in the apricot forest before, but I didn't take many pictures of animals eating apricots, but I took more than 900 different apricot pickers." When I saw the film, Chen Yanzhi was a little amused.

The blown plants, a sudden beam of sunlight, intruding animals, and tourists passing by may trigger infrared camera shooting. The higher the trigger frequency, the faster the power consumption. When not triggered, the camera is in "standby" state.

"Under normal circumstances, an infrared camera can last at least 2 months." Zhang Qi, a staff member of the "Urban Biodiversity Recovery Project" of the Landscape Nature Conservation Center, which provided Chen Yanzhi with on-site technical guidance on infrared cameras, introduced that infrared cameras, infrared cameras, are also called infrared trigger cameras. The working principle is to receive intensity changes in thermal infrared rays. "So most snakes, lizards, etc. with similar body temperatures to ambient temperatures will not trigger infrared cameras."

Chen Yanzhi said that the shooting mode of infrared cameras can be set to full photos, full videos or photo plus videos. "Photographed modes often cannot capture the full picture of animals like weasels." She said that the data collected is often a long flash of light and shadow. Therefore, it is necessary to set according to the different animals that appear frequently, and after each viewing of the data, corresponding adjustments can be made.

She said that the project is still in a process of continuous "trial and error".

▲Chen Yanzhi is checking the infrared camera. Photo by Li Kaixiang, reporter of Beijing News

At night, Orson is the home court of animals

For Chen Yanzhi, although the wildlife monitoring work in Orson Park was not as smooth as the suburbs, she still tirelessly wandered through this "magic space" with an area of ​​680 hectares and a greening coverage rate of 95.61%. When she walked into Orson, she seemed to push open a door between wild animals and people. Chen Yanzhi couldn't resist.

Chen Yanzhi said that the trajectory of humans and animals intertwined and missed shoulders in Orson. Similar to birds, animals also like to move around in the morning and evening, and the temperature at morning and evening is more suitable for animals. ”

Chen Yanzhi explained that the activity time of different animals is also different. "The leopard cat prefers to move before sunrise, from 2:00 to 4:00 am. Roe deer and wild boar will be later, at six or seven o'clock. Therefore, the trigger time will be adjusted according to the different animals that appear. ”

Guan Xiangyu said that in terms of investigating animals, infrared cameras are a very important research tool.

▲The angle of Chen Yanzhi after debugging mobile infrared cameras. Photo by Beijing News reporter Li Kaixiang

People should be happy to coexist with wild animals

Of the 14 infrared cameras currently owned by the "Animals around us" project, 3 are from fundraising and self-purchasing, 9 are donated and borrowed by animal protection personnel, and 2 are from the support of the private environmental protection organization Landscape Nature Conservation Center. Chen Yanzhi is one of the volunteers of the Landscape Nature Conservation Center.

"The 'Shanshui' will hand over the two infrared cameras placed in the South Park of Orson Park to Yanzhi for management. We provide her with technical support, and she also helps us collect and organize data. "According to Zhang Fen, in September 2019, the Beijing Biodiversity Restoration Demonstration and Public Education Project - "Natural Beijing", led by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Greening and Orchid Nature Conservation, was officially launched.

The project is committed to improving the habitat environment of wild animals and providing a demonstration model for the recovery of urban biodiversity in Beijing. Zhang Fen said that Jingxi Forest Farm, Orchid Park, and Wild Duck Lake are all demonstration sites selected by "Natural Beijing". Among them, the Landscape Nature Conservation Center divides Orchid Park into 20 "lattices" with equal area, and plans to place 2 infrared cameras in each grid to monitor the density of wild animals, "find whether there is a greater possibility for the coexistence of humans and wild animals in the local green spaces in Beijing. ”

Zhang Fei said that the monitoring data of urban wildlife infrared cameras can provide important reference value for urban planning, garden construction, etc. "We look forward to seeing that in the future, people will not endure the existence of these adjacent wildlife, but are willing to coexist. Humans and wild animals can safely move on green spaces without conflict. Animals will not attack people, and humans will not harm animals. It is a harmonious coexistence relationship. ”

Osen Park: June 16, 21:16, weasel; June 22, around 23:00, hedgehog and stray cat; July 4, around 7:00, Mongolian rabbit; Jingxi Forest Farm: June 21, 18:54, Siberian roe; June 27, 13:46, gorilla; Wild duck lake: June 29, 2:25, three leopard cats.

The above data is only the tip of the iceberg in Chen Yanzhi's team's database. It takes a lot of time to set up cameras and retrieve data, and the later sorting of data is a "big big deal" that consumes effort Project, but Chen Yanzhi said that when he saw the many moments of wildlife pictures, the joyful energy diluted all other difficulties.

The 15-year-old short-haired girl said that Beijing was once a "feng shui treasure land" for various animals to prosper. Starting from west Beijing, the Yanshan Mountains connect the Taihang Mountains and can extend to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Beijing has five major water systems: Yongding River, Chaobai River, Bei Canal, Juma River and Ji Canal.

At the end of June, the leopard cat photographed at Wild Duck Lake surprised Chen Yanzhi, "The captured picture is particularly good, and it is a mother with two babies. ”

Chen Yanzhi once heard people mention that leopard cats may have a particularly big reaction to cat shit, so Chen Yanzhi's team put a piece of cat shit in front of the camera, "There are two leopard cat babies being rubbed against the cat shit from behind. Then the pig badger came. Once, an animal was photographed on a path where the animal must pass to drink water, like a raccoon. Later, I asked an animal expert and found it was a badger. ”

She said that in the rapid development of the city, many magical wild animals are still surviving in the "secret corner".

She said that what is even more gratifying is that she can become one of the recorders.

Reporter Wu Linshu

Editor Li Li Li

Duty edit Sun Linjing

Proofreading Li Ming