‘Eagle City’ Theme Salon Showcases Chongqing’s Raptor Conservation Efforts

Chongqing - On March 11, the “Eagle City” Theme Salon was held in Chongqing’s Jiulongpo District, with four guests to share Chongqing’s unique natural landscape, raptor conservation efforts, and popular bird science.

Zhang Haipeng, the director of the Chongqing Geographic Information and Remote Sensing Application Center and the 824 Research Institute, shared his theme speech on “Mountains and cities.”

According to Zhang Haipeng, Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality is the world’s largest city built in the parallel ridge and valley regions because of its unique topography. And these parallel ridges and valleys look like expressways, which enable migratory raptors to fly in circles in updrafts created by these mountains, making Chongqing a landmark of natural passages for migratory birds in Eurasia.

The skies of Chongqing are filled with hundreds of thousands of migratory raptors of more than thirty species each year. Among them are many rare and endangered raptors, such as the Jerdon’s baza, the short-toed snake eagle, the booted eagle, Bonelli’s eagle, the greater spotted eagle, and the steppe eagle. The number of migratory raptor species accounts for 80% of the number of raptors in Chongqing and 46% of the country. And this earns the city another name, “Eagle City.”

Wei Qian, president of the Chongqing Bird Watching Society, who has been engaged in raptor research and monitoring for a long time, gave his speech on “My story with raptors.”

As a well-known local bird conservation organization, Chongqing Bird Watching Society regularly organizes volunteers and bird enthusiasts to visit various observation sites in Chongqing’s parallel ridges to conduct simultaneous surveys of transit raptors during the migration season and has accumulated and analyzed over ten years of basic raptor data for the study of raptors.

“We have monitored 228,125 raptors in Chongqing since 2013,” said Wei Qian.

Zhou Jun, a veterinarian at the Chongqing Terrestrial Wildlife Rescue Center, who has been engaged in bird rescue, shared his theme: “How much do you know about bird rescue?”

According to Zhou, Chongqing Terrestrial Wildlife Rescue Center treats a variety of injured wildlife brought in by the public each year. In the last five years, it has rescued 338 raptors, including 143 Falconiformes, Accipitriformes, and 195 in the order Strigiformes.

Chen Zhu, the director of the Nature Bridge Environment Education Center, who has been engaged in the bird popular sciences for years, shared her speech on “A bird’s-eye view of the new world, popular bird science for the public.”

She introduced that the center provides the public with a bird-watching activity. And they organize regular public participation in raptor protection activities.

The event also included a public interactive Q&A session, providing a platform for participants to ask questions and exchange ideas with guest speakers. Over ten international students at Chongqing University participated in the salon, and some interacted with the guests.