Yellow River Wetland in Shanxi 'Shields' White Swans' Migration

After several months of frolicking, tens of thousands of white swans have successively ended their winter migration to Shanxi Yellow River wetland and returned to Siberia in flocks. The Yellow River wetland, with lush vegetation and continuous ecological improvement, has become one of the best migration protection areas for white swans.

Zhongyuan Plain Yellow River wetland, with an area of over 6000 hectares, is one of China’s three wintering habitats for white swans. Every winter, thousands of white swans come from Siberia to spend the winter here, turning it into a huge ‘Swan Lake’.

‘White swans are sensitive, and used to stay away. Now they dare to approach people. If you feed them, they will circle around you.’ For more than 10 years, He Jianxi has been a patrol officer. Now villagers have strong protection awareness, even if they see white swans pecking at wheat seedlings in the field, they won’t drive them away.

The peak of white swan population in Zhongyuan Plain Yellow River wetland is around the turn of the year. Yang Yunge, head of the Shanxi Provincial Wild Flora and Fauna Protection Station, says that since the early 1980s, white swans have begun to winter here. Initially, there were only a few thousand, but last year it reached about 1.2.

In Pingli, ‘less development, more protection’ has always been a basic principle in recent years. Yang Yunge says, ‘We have learned from the mistakes of driving away white swans for short-term benefits. We want to build the Yellow River wetland into a permanent home for white swans’.

Ten years ago, someone in Pingli invested hundreds of millions of yuan in the Yellow River wetland to build artificial lakes for raising fish and decorated them with fish racks and cages. However, after the winter, the white swans didn’t come. Villagers discovered that it wasn’t because they didn’t want to come, but because the development of the water area damaged the wetland ecosystem, and the white swans ‘had no home to return to’, so they could only circle in the sky.

After learning about the situation, the Pingli County Government immediately dismantled the fish-raising facilities on the lake, financed by the government, to purchase corn, cabbage and other feed, and dispatched specialized personnel to scatter feed along the river every day. Within a few days, the white swans finally landed and settled down to forage.