Beavering away for a good cause

More than three decades ago, Chu Hongjun, a young man from East China's Shandong province, traveled to Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, throwing himself into wildlife research and protection work in Altay prefecture, especially the conservation of endangered beavers.

Today, his 27-year-old daughter, Chu Wenwen, adheres to the faith of her father. More than that, she has successfully called on more than 1 million young people in making a joint effort to create a better living environment for the Mengxin beaver, the only beaver species living in China, which is only found along the Ulungur River in Altay.

Earlier this month, as part of its 26th iteration, Chu Wenwen was awarded the China Youth May 4th Medal－the top honor for outstanding young Chinese people－for her continuous efforts in environmental protection.

The web-savvy youngster has initiated a project to livestream, 24 hours a day, how the beavers live in the wild.

The Mengxin beaver is a species that can improve its ecological environment. It uses branches of willow shrub to build "dams" that become small habitats for fish and birds and attract more species, such as small beasts and insects. Therefore, each beaver dam provides a new habitat for wild animals and helps to improve biodiversity levels, she explains.

Infrared cameras have been installed so that viewers can observe the ecological circulation around those small habitats built by the beavers.

Chu Wenwen also recruited volunteers from across the country to take notes on the behavior of the beavers and their interaction with other wild animals, according to what they see from their screens at home. These notes can also be used for relevant scientific research.

Additionally, as the director of the nature conservation association of Altay prefecture, she is also willing to take parents and their children on field trips to observe beavers firsthand.

She believes that if opportunities are provided for people to learn more about the animal, they're more likely to take actions to protect it.

"We can bridge the gap between the public and the beavers," she says.

Willow shrub is not only the material that beavers use to build their dams, but it is the major food source for beavers. To create a better living environment for the species, Chu Wenwen has initiated a charity project titled Beaver Canteen to solicit funds from internet users to buy willow shrub seedlings. She and her team, as well as the local Kazak herders, then plant the seedlings.

Now, more than 410,000 willow shrubs have been planted with the money raised from the project. And the number of beaver nests has increased from 162 to 190 over the past four years, a 20 percent jump in the population of the rodent.

Chu Wenwen says these projects aim to make ecology conservation easier.

"We are the young generation that grew up amid the internet boom. Today, modern online communication tools and advanced equipment used for scientific research enable us to gather more people together in the pursuit of wildlife protection," she says.

A wildlife rescue center, offering medical and rehabilitation services to wild animals, is also under construction in Fuyun county, Altay prefecture－another charity project initiated by the nature conservation association that Chu Wenwen has registered.

She notes that she and her colleagues often come across injured or trapped animals when they work in the wild. However, it used to be difficult to carry out rescue work due to the shortage of proper medical equipment and facilities.

Therefore, they launched a charity project online last year to raise money for the construction of the center, which provides shelter and special treatment to animals that are unable to be released back into the wild because of illnesses or injury. The center, with a total area of 2,600 square meters, will also function as an education base for natural science, where visitors can get to know the importance of biodiversity protection.

Her father Chu Hongjun was a forestry official who dedicated himself to the protection of Altay prefecture's biodiversity since his graduation from the School of Life Sciences at Shandong University in 1991. As his daughter, Chu Wenwen's passion for wildlife protection is in her genes.

Chu Hongjun used to spend months in the wild with his colleagues, conducting scientific research and monitoring different species. Back then, in the depths of the mountainous areas in Altay, they could only ride horses.

When Chu Wenwen was just a toddler, her father started to take her on environmental-protection expeditions, carrying the 2-year-old with him on horseback.

As she grew older, the father taught her how to ride the horse, use binoculars, and he would point out different kinds of plant species during field trips.

"My father's parenting style was fairly creative. One day, when my hands were pricked by a thorny flower, I burst into tears, crying to get his attention. He ran to me, unexpectedly, not to check on the wound, but to ask me to remember which family, genus and species to which the flower belonged," she recalls.

At 7, Chu Wenwen got a gift from her father, a single-lens reflex camera. She has since taken innumerable pictures of wild animals, including beavers, sables, snow leopards, argali sheep, lynxes, golden eagles and brown bears, while following her father in the wild.

It was routine for her to carry heavy photographic equipment on her shoulder and hide in snow, waiting for hours to snap some rare species of animal in its natural environment.

At that time, she thought that the photos she took would help to raise people's awareness of the need for animal protection.

"However, I gradually found that it's hard for people to feel a connection with a species if they only see photos or documentaries," she says.

In 2017, after completing a postgraduate program at Beijing Forestry University, where she studied wildlife conservation and utilization, she decided to go back to Altay to plan out projects that might enable a larger group of people to develop an emotional bond with wild animals. It was then that she got the idea for her charity projects.

She recalls that, one day, they rescued a beaver that had been badly injured in a fight with rival beavers over an available habitat. She planned to livestream its recovery online.

The way the beaver continuously gnawed at carrots looked so adorable that a large number of viewers fell in love with the adorable rodent. Unfortunately, the beaver was unable to be saved and died, which broke the hearts of its many online fans.

The poor creature did not die in vain, however.

"On the first day after its death, the Beaver Canteen project received a donation of around 800,000($120,080) yuan from people online," Chu Wenwen says.

An unbreakable bond had been created, and the first step on a meaningful journey toward greater public understanding of these industrious creatures was taken.