During our stay in New Zealand, we started south from Christchurch in the South Island, and then went north from Wellington in the North Island. In this slender island country, we are going north and south non-stop. I have been to many towns and the scope of investigation is also very wide. Green grassland, vast Shan Ye, clear lake, brilliant starry sky, everything is refreshing, snow-capped mountains, surging rivers, flying seagulls ... blue sky. Such a modern natural country is full of rural areas, with about 30% of its territory as a protected area. Before 1000, there were few people, and there was no country 200 years ago.
Around 1 100, a Polynesian navigator named Kubi discovered New Zealand, and his wife named it "the land of long white clouds". After returning to Polynesia, he described this wonderful land to people, but it was not until 1350 that Maori, as Polynesians, began to immigrate to New Zealand because of the lack of food in their hometown. Their canoe fleet.
Rotorua is an important town with gushing hot springs and abundant geothermal resources. Almost every family has hot springs to soak in. I think the Maori are also happy about this. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, there were about100000 Maori in New Zealand. They are isolated from the world, have their own language, have no concept of a country, can sing and dance, indulge in art, and engage in carving and weaving. In Rotorua, you can witness the skillful sisal twining skills of Maori women and enjoy their wonderful singing and dancing performances. Interestingly, according to the genetic analysis conducted by scientists from Victoria University, the ancestors of Maori should have originated from China, which can be described as "the same root".
1642, Albert Tasman, a Dutch explorer, set off from Java and Indonesia in two ships to explore the south, and unexpectedly arrived in New Zealand, becoming the first European to discover this land, but he did not land because of the resistance of the North Island Maori. I remember when our plane passed through the sea between Australia and New Zealand, the flight chart showed that tasman sea was named after this explorer.
1769, the British explorer Captain james cook discovered New Zealand before visiting Australia. After communicating with Maori, he landed on land and became the first European to set foot in New Zealand. Captain Cook is very important to New Zealanders. His statue can be seen in many places. The highest mountain in China, 3764 meters above sea level, is also named Cook Peak after him.
1840, British Governor Herbert Sen came to New Zealand from Sydney to negotiate with Maori. On February 6 of that year, he signed an epoch-making document-the Treaty of Waitangi. Later, New Zealand designated February 6th as the National Day. Because, on this day, the dominance of the British in New Zealand was determined and large-scale immigration began. In a prominent position in the city we passed, we can see a monument engraved with the names of the original settlers.
A strange living fossil —— Three-eyed Wedge-toothed lizard
Out of work and hobbies, I consulted relevant information before my visit, and learned that/kloc-0.5 billion years ago, New Zealand in the southern hemisphere was also connected with Antarctica, South America, Africa and Australia, forming Gondwana, and then gradually separated. Because New Zealand is independent from other lands, it belongs to the oldest fauna in the world, and largely retains the fauna at the end of Mesozoic.
At the same time, New Zealand is also a rather poor animal area, and the local mammals have nothing except two kinds of bats. There are few amphibians and reptiles, and there are no snakes at all, but a reptile called the three-eyed wedge lizard is particularly eye-catching.
Because there are no predatory natural enemies in this land of New Zealand, the three-eyed cuneiform lizard lives leisurely and quietly, and it has continued from the dinosaur era to today, and it is worthy of being a living fossil in the Jurassic era. In recent hundreds of years, humans landed, killed and brought mice, which made this animal extinct on the main island.
Ms. Susan from the Biology Department of Victoria University, let's take a look at a live three-eyed wedge lizard she keeps. This is a quiet and polite male animal, more than a foot long and covered with scales. About 17 years old, but not yet an adult. Three-eyed cuneiform lizards can live up to 100 years old and enter sexual maturity at the age of 20.
Their low-key, slow and simple survival strategy is the key to their long-term continuation. Its name is Sanyan, but why can't it be seen? I didn't know it did have a "cranial eye" until I asked Ms. Susan, but it wasn't really an eye that could see.
Anyway, it's an eye-opener to get close to this amazing creature from the dinosaur era. I hope that the three-eyed cuneiform lizard will always be a living fairy in this paradise.
Kiwi, the symbol of New Zealanders.
On the ancient islands of South and North New Zealand, because there are no animals and snakes, birds don't have to escape, the ground food is abundant, and their flight ability is gradually degraded. There are many unique birds here, and many of them are wingless birds. Therefore, New Zealand has the title of "Hometown of Wingless Birds", but in recent centuries, most of the wingless birds became extinct after human landing, and only 15 species became extinct.
The only wingless bird preserved in New Zealand is the famous kiwi. Hong Kong and Taiwan Province translate exotic birds, also known as kiwis. Of course, it's called kiwi directly in English, not bird. The adult kiwi weighs about 2000 grams, but the egg weighs 500 grams, almost a quarter of its weight. According to this relative ratio, no bird in the world can lay bigger eggs than kiwi. Compared with the absolute value, eggs of several dimensions are far less than those of elephants and phobias, and even those of ostriches and emus. Another morphological feature of several dimensions is that the beak is slender and the beak is the beak of a bird. Beaks in several dimensions are longer than legs, and the mouth has nostrils, no wings and no tail.
There are three dimensions: the normal brown dimension in the middle of North Island, the large patch dimension in the northwest of South Island and the small patch dimension in Kapiti Island.
In the life of New Zealanders, kiwis are everywhere. The name of a bank is Kiwi, and the head of Queen Elizabeth is printed on one side of New Zealand 20-cent and 1-yuan coins, and Kiwi is on the other side. Kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand, and New Zealanders call themselves Kiwi frankly. I remember when I was in New Zealand, I caught the live broadcast of the Olympic basketball game on TV. China versus New Zealand, the announcer didn't refer to the domestic players as New Zealand, but simply referred to as kiwi.
In my opinion, it is also appropriate to compare New Zealanders with rare birds unique to New Zealand, that is, indifferent to the world, unassuming, pragmatic and leisurely. But there is also something that bothers me, that is, kiwifruit imported from China is called kiwifruit by New Zealanders.
Centennial kiwifruit, a fruit from a foreign country.
During our trip to New Zealand, we ate the most, and our favorite fruit was kiwifruit. Kiwifruit was originally produced only in China, and it is not a peach that macaques like to eat, as some people think. It is named after a macaque because of its skin and fur. Kiwi is delicious, cheap and nutritious. It's a pity that kiwifruit people here call it kiwifruit. What happened?
It turns out that 100 years ago, a headmistress named Isabel from New Zealand visited her sister in Yichang, Hubei, China, and brought China kiwifruit seeds back to New Zealand. After careful cultivation by local gardening expert Alexander, the first kiwifruit in New Zealand-kiwifruit was born. They are called kiwifruit for their own reasons: the color is brown and yellow, the hair is short and few, and the handle at the top looks like a "bird's mouth", which is vivid in a fruit. So in New Zealand, kiwifruit is kiwifruit in English.
In this way, kiwifruit, which originated in China, not only took root and sprouted in New Zealand with suitable climate and temperature and humidity, but also took the lead and became popular all over the world.
Furry Time Bomb —— Brush-tailed Sable
Southbound along the eastern route, sometimes parallel to the only railway in South Island, and sometimes facing stormy waves. In order to get the best sightseeing effect, I sat in the passenger seat that people think is the most dangerous. Sitting in the front row of the car, you can catch everything you see at any time, especially all kinds of animals, cattle and sheep surrounded by pillars, horses in vests, alpacas imported from South America, red deer in large-scale captivity, Australian magpies that look like crows, pairs of black-breasted ducks (translated into paradise ducks by us at that time), black swans with enchanting red mouths, and even rabbits running around and flying in the blue sky. ...
But the strangest thing is that on the highway, you can always see small animals that have been run over by cars, such as rabbits, eagles, hedgehogs, and more are "civets". I wonder, how can Asian civets run to this island country in the southern hemisphere? If there are so many civets in New Zealand, they must be very nervous when SARS broke out, right? Why haven't you heard of it? Judging from the remains of those animals, their faces are not flowery and their tails are not long, unlike civet cats, whose English name is "pao raccoons". At the Auckland Museum, I learned about the ins and outs of this animal.
It turns out that this is an animal of Tasmania family, Tasmania, which was introduced from Australia. It is 32-58 cm long and weighs about 2-5 kg. Its body color is brown-black, with dense gray fluff, large nose and mouth, fox-like face, long curly tail and broom-like hair in the back half, hence the name. Tasmanian sable with broom tail is the most common marsupial in Australia, which is distributed in the north, southeast, southwest and Tasmania. Mainly at night, foraging for fruits and leaves of various plants, catching insects and small animals, and hiding in tree holes, bushes or rabbit holes during the day.
The earliest introduction time was 1800, probably because there were few individuals in the population and it was not successful. 1858, reintroduced successfully. During the period of 1890- 1900, people made another effort to attract 200-300 animals from Australia and Tasmania, most of which were released in the South Island, and a few were released in a place slightly north of Wellington at the southern tip of the North Island. At that time, people introduced exotic species to New Zealand many times for economic purposes. As a hunting and fur-bearing animal, this kind of small animal, which is easy to catch and poses no threat to people, is loved by people and protected by law. In fact, in some shops in New Zealand, we can also see socks made of mink hair. I even heard that people still eat this animal in the west of South Island. However, whether people eat, get run over by cars, or hunt and rob, they can't stop the growth of brooms. If it is China, their fate is naturally the same as that of civets.
In New Zealand, where there are a lot of people and few resources, the utilization of marsupials with broomsticks is far less rapid than their own reproduction. In New Zealand, a land not controlled by natural enemies, this extremely fertile animal is constantly growing and exploding. In less than a century, it has spread all over the country, reaching 70 million, with an average of every New Zealander 17, while there are only 40 million sheep in their country. Every marsupial with broomstick tail eats 300 grams of plant leaves a night, so in New Zealand, about 3 tons of plants are eaten by marsupials with broomstick tail every day, which is a great threat not only to plants, but also to livestock and deer industry. They will also eat and occupy the living space of many native species, bringing tuberculosis and so on. It is easy to ask God, but difficult to send God. People's behavior of "seeing its advantages but not its disadvantages" has now brought bad consequences, and it is also called "long-haired time bomb" by experts.
Deer Kingdom-New Zealand
China is the country with the richest deer species in the world, with about 20 species, accounting for half of the world. It is also a country with the longest cultural tradition of traditional Chinese medicine, in which velvet antler has a long history of being used as medicine. New Zealand's deer industry has developed rapidly, ranking first in the world. Over the years, only along the way from Queenstown to the middle line of South Island in Christchurch, the breeding population of red deer seen by the roadside is very large, with tens of thousands.
One day, at the foot of southern alps, South Island, after taking a nap in front of the snowy grassland where The Lord of the Rings was filmed, we drove to a place called Linde Canyon, where a stone tablet was erected, which read 187 1 year, and seven red deer were released here. It seems that the history of raising deer in New Zealand has been more than 100 years.
At first, people raised deer for hunting, eating meat and using deerskin. In the future, antlers will be used as living room decoration. In recent years, the demand for pilose antler as medicine and health care products is increasing. New Zealand has a vast Yuan Ye, abundant sunshine, moderate rainfall and lush pastures. Coupled with the export trade of velvet antler and venison, the deer industry is booming. At present, there are more than 5,000 deer farms in New Zealand, and the number of deer is 6.5438+0.8 million, ranking first in the world.
Cooked ducks are not allowed in, so as not to defend the country.
I heard that the quarantine in New Zealand is extremely strict, so we have personal experience. Dr. Yang, a colleague of beijing museum of natural history, brought two Peking Duck to his friend. Was "intercepted" by the customs at the time of entry and confiscated? If you don't report your entry card, you will be fined at least a few hundred dollars, which is quite scary. Actually, I'm more afraid of New Zealand. This isolated island country lives on aquaculture, especially animal husbandry. If brought into the epidemic, the harm will be disastrous. I also heard that in the 2004 Olympic Games, New Zealand cyclist Uomou just won the gold medal and wore an olive wreath on his head. New Zealand Agriculture Ministry officials sensitively warned that for security reasons, the country's garlands should not be brought into the country. If you violate New Zealand's regulations on import restrictions of animals and plants, you will be punished with huge fines or even imprisonment.
In fact, it makes sense that the immigration inspection office in New Zealand is so sensitive and strict. New Zealand, less than 200 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, has indeed benefited a lot from the introduction of species, such as kiwifruit and deer breeding mentioned above, but it has also brought painful lessons, such as the outbreak of marsupials and the loss of native species ... What species has New Zealand introduced? That is, overseas immigrants from New Zealand. Who else but humans? How did the migration of humans and their animals lead to the extinction of endemic animals in New Zealand?
With these questions, I visited several museums, or exchanged books or directly asked for relevant information. Why do you want to show such a theme in the museum, especially with nature? I think this is an important task of popular science, involving the national economy and people's livelihood, personal behavior, ecological security and economic stability. Finally, I got the complete answer at the Auckland Museum. I stopped in front of the rows of imported animal specimens and copied down the names of the imported animals. It's like being impacted and inspired by an "ecological earthquake". "Stones from other mountains can attack jade". Abroad, I strongly feel that these events and stories should be introduced to the public in China. After all, the situation of blind introduction in China is equally severe.
China and New Zealand.
Before I came to New Zealand, I knew almost nothing about such a southern hemisphere country. When I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, I realized that the "Antarctic Center" here is the city with the closest relationship with Antarctica in the world. New Zealand is the first country in the world to welcome a new day; New Zealand is one of the earliest countries in the world to promote the feminist movement; New Zealand's "value party" is one of the earliest green parties in the world; New Zealand is also a country with a long-standing relationship with China. Perhaps, people who have been to New Zealand will say that the relationship between New Zealand and China is not that there are many restaurants in China, many overseas students in China, many tourists in China and many goods made in China. Actually, it is not.
Although China and New Zealand are separated by oceans, they both belong to the Asia-Pacific region geographically and have a long history of communication. As early as 1860, Chinese immigrated to New Zealand and became one of the early immigrant groups there.
Located in a place called Arrow Town near Queenstown, South Island, there is a village of China, but there are no more China people. The river flows, and the deceased is like this, telling the hardships of the early years. These short huts are similar to an indigenous site. According to the explanation board, during the period of 1886- 1906, * * * a total of 25 workers from China collected gold here. There are no women among them, so there are no descendants. Because of their old age and death, the last one survived to 1920, ending the bitter overseas history of South China University of Technology.
Chinese workers in their early years were treated unfairly by the New Zealand government at that time. There is an exhibition called "Savage Tax" in Hamilton Museum, which reveals the history that early Chinese immigrants were forced to pay poll tax (S $0/00 per person). Later, the New Zealand government apologized for this. 1874- 188 1 * * There are 5,000 Chinese working in New Zealand, half of whom are in Otago, South Island. Dunedin, a city in this province, prospered due to gold panning. A large number of China people from Guangdong once came here to make a living. At that time, most of them were engaged in service jobs, such as opening vegetable gardens, restaurants and laundries. In order to improve their fate, they have high hopes for their children. Indeed, many children of old overseas Chinese live up to expectations. Nowadays, many children of old overseas Chinese, the third and fourth generations, have become lawyers and doctors, and have become the best in New Zealand society.
The history of Sino-Singapore friendship is also extraordinary. 1937, when the Japanese invaded China, the China government issued an urgent appeal to the League of Nations. At the multinational conference, New Zealand representative William Jordan bravely supported China's anti-Japanese war and voted for "international joint action" with the former Soviet Union (only these two countries stood on China's side at that time).
In War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, New Zealand doctor Catherine Hall "came to China not far from Wan Li", and like Bethune, she practiced medicine in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border region, saving lives. Marshal Nie Rongzhen once wrote an inscription for her: "Save lives, make selfless contributions, support the war of resistance, and history will last forever".
I'm afraid the New Zealander you are most familiar with is rewi alley, an old friend of China people (1897 65438+February 2-1987 65438+February 27). 1927, he came to China and stayed in China. He devoted his life to publicizing and introducing China to the international community, published and translated a large number of China poems, and wrote a large number of books introducing China, reaching 63 books, which made outstanding contributions to Sino-Singapore friendship.
Extinction stems from New Zealand's fear of birds.
In New Zealand, in the face of clear water, blue sky, green mountains and green waters, you will always catch a glimpse of the phantom. Such a beautiful and peaceful ocean garden of Eden, a big bird with a clumsy head and two people's height, appears on the distant horizon, but when it sees a person, it will turn and disappear into the horizon of the human world. ...
The fear bird is the tallest bird in Australia. Adult birds are as tall as two adults and weigh 270 kilograms. 8 million years ago, the fear birds lived in New Zealand, and once flourished, with as many as 25 species. Its eggs are as big as basketball and weigh about ten kilograms. A bird-fearing egg is equivalent to 65,438+000 eggs.
/kloc-In 0/350, Maori came to New Zealand by canoe. As soon as the first Maori landed on the North Island, they saw tall and big birds dangling around, which scared them to flee back to the boat. Therefore, they named these birds "fear birds".
When human beings discovered the fear of birds, it was also the day when the fear of birds suffered. Soon, these Polynesians armed with spears landed on the island one after another, slaughtered the fear birds, took away the eggs, and led animals such as mice and dogs to New Zealand, which was originally clean, and finally made these big birds extinct. The north island moa became extinct in17th century, and the south island moa became extinct around 1850.
In the carving of Maori graves, people found some strange poems about fear of birds. Faced with the fact that Maori civilization in New Zealand has gradually been replaced by European civilization, these predictions can be described as unfortunate words: "Alas, we will be lost because of the fear of birds."
From the anthropological point of view, the gentle nostalgia of Maori for bird fear also reflects how deeply natural biodiversity affects social and cultural diversity. Unfortunately, extinction means forever.
In a gallery in New Zealand, I once saw such a painting, in which flocks of domestic chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs, cows and sheep flocked. At the same time, local animals-fear birds, chickens, crows and laughing owls ... were replaced, faded out and extinct.
In New Zealand, since humans landed, the dominoes in New Zealand's life world began to collapse.