Chongqing- The first week of April is Chongqing Bird Loving Week. According to Chongqing Municipal Forestry Administration, Chongqing is home to 91 of China's key protected bird species and a total of 218 nature reserves here, accounting for 15.4% of the city's total area.

Black-capped kingfisher (Photo/Sha Qiu)

Among the 91 national key protected birds species, there are nine national first-class protected wild animals, including Reeves's pheasant, Chinese merganser duck, golden eagle, and so on. At the same time, there are 82 national second-class protected wild animals, including golden pheasant, mandarin duck, red-billed leiothrix, and so on. According to the geographical distribution, most of those birds live along with rivers or in the mountains and forests at an altitude of 1,200 to 2,800 meters.

Chinese hwamei (Photo/Ma Kaiyu)

"Many rare and endangered wild animals and plants grow in forests and other areas with better ecological environment. Therefore, an important measure to protect them is to establish habitats for rare and endangered wild animals and plants," said a representative of the Nature Reserve and Wildlife Protection Department of Chongqing Municipal Forestry Administration.

Crested honey buzzard (Photo/Ma Kaiyu)

Hence, Chongqing has covered the concentrated distribution areas of rare and endangered wild animals and plants into key protected areas such as nature reserves. For equipment, in addition to the deployment of infrared monitoring equipment and the implementation of special personnel for patrol and inspection, there are also piloted electronic fences and monitoring networks for the sky and the ground. In this way, these nature reserves can accurately control human activities, strengthen the supervision and management of various types of nature reserves at all levels, vigorously implement natural forest protection, and continuously improve the ability to protect and manage wildlife habitats.

Golden eagle (Photo/Jiang Huazhi)

Also, Chongqing Municipal Forestry Administration mentioned that while building habitats, Chongqing has also continued to rescue and protect rare and endangered wild animals and plants and will proceed to protect species with narrow distribution areas, degraded populations, and small numbers of individuals. For example, Chongqing has set up six municipal-level terrestrial wildlife shelters and rescue agencies to carry out shelter and rescue of injured wild animals for bird conservation. Last year, 219 birds were sheltered and rescued, and 1 Chinese merganser duck was successfully treated.

Little egret (Photo/Xie Xiaofeng)

During Chongqing Bird Loving Week this year, Chongqing will organize 43 service teams of 365 people for mountain guard and bird protection. The organization will carry out voluntary services such as popular science education, patrol and rescue, and removal of illegal hunting tools in bird gathering places, main migration passages, flower and bird markets, and so on.

Chinese merganser duck (Photo/Ma Kaiyu)

Jack snipe (Photo/Wang Lian)