Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

Qionghai downtown

                        dinner

Fengmu (枫木; Maple) Deer Park, preserving native deer

 

Finishing an early lunch that cost only 10 RMB at the hotel cafe, I walk a kilometre to Qionghai Bus Station at the corner of Dongfeng and Yuanxiang Road, where buses head to major towns like Ding’an, Haikou, Qiongzhong, Tunchang, and Wenchang.  The fare to Fengmu is 22 RMB.  The travelling distance, as it transpires, is circuitous at one hundred and twenty-eight kilometres, double the distance of a crow flying from east to west.

Both Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve and Fengmu Deer Feeding Farm are located on the shore of a small lake (木色湖; Muse Hu; literally, Wood-Colour Lake) midway between Tunchang and Qiongzhong, the two towns in the heart of Hainan Island.

Leaving with nine passengers from Gate 5 at eleven forty-five, the small light-green bus with two-seat rows on either side of the aisle runs north for forty-five minutes until it reaches a roundabout (perhaps near Baitang Reservoir) where it picks four passengers and then turns west to Tunchang.  Lined with trees, the road to Tunchang is two-lane wide.  Entering Tunchang, the bus turns south.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Qionghai Bus Station
琼海汽车站

 

Fengmu is about thirty kilometres from here.  In this slow-moving bus, the urge to take notes is irresistible.  The curious conductress looks condescendingly at my notebook, and beseeches me to read its content.  To prevent misunderstanding, I dutifully comply.  

In my gibberish Mandarin, I say roughly the following:


“The bus leaves Qionghai Station with nine passengers.  It is air-conditioned and has two seats on each side.  It goes north along the highway at the speed of fifty kilometres per hour.  After forty-five minutes, it reaches a roundabout and turns left.  It picks four passengers.  Then it turns south.  The road becomes one-lane and lined with trees.”

 
At that juncture, Ye Qui Lin interrupts, telling me to write that the bus is travelling very slowly because sixty kilometres per hour is the speed limit and the fine is 200 RMB for exceeding.  Since numerous traffic cameras operate along the way, avoiding unnecessary fines is important, she adds.  She then shows me her register of passengers and day’s collection.  Her tally reveals only 165 RMB, which is insufficient to pay even a fine and would be an operating loss for the trip if one is paid.

 

Green bus displaying red “Qionghai Central-Tunchang” destination sign
绿色公共汽车显示红色“琼海中-屯昌”标志

 

I am very impressed with the meticulous auditing of the bus company as well as her financial accountability.  With honest staff like her, Hainan will surely prosper without being tainted by the graft and corruption so prevalent in many modernizing economies.  Qui Lin is actually a very nice lady; she gives me her phone number and the phone number of her bus company, advising me to call the company for information on the approximate departure time of the last bus from Fengmu to Qionghai.

When we reach Fengmu at one-thirty in the afternoon, only two other passengers are left.  We have travelled for an hour and forty-five minutes.  I have not checked my map before leaving Qionghai, which is a mistake.  I ask to be dropped off at the Fengmu Deer Feeding Farm, instead of Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve.  The latter is about one kilometre before the former.  Indeed, I have seen a crowd of students near its entrance but it has not occurred to me to alight.  I land up staring at a fairly unpopulated village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tunchang Fengmu Bitter Gourd Demonstration Region near Fengmu Deer Farm
屯昌枫木苦瓜示范区, 近枫木鹿养殖场

 

“State-owed Hainan Fengmu Deer Farm”: that English translation beneath its Mandarin version painted on the dark-green billboard on the flat roof of the office building captures my interest.  “State-owed”?

Enjoying a siesta on her bed in the room visible from the reception table, the receptionist awakes upon my shout, dazed but unfazed.  After receiving the requisite admission fee which, if my memory is correct, is 20 RMB, she dutifully brings me to the gate of the enclosed park and directs me to lock it after finishing my tour.  She entrusts me with the key.  The sole visitor, I am very pleased and honoured to be ranked as an honest and responsible person in her mental evaluation.  I am now a privileged temporary custodian of all the deer in there.  I will not allow any to escape into the wild. 

Before the entrance is a graceful three-metre stone statue of a stag and his family - his doe and fawn.  In their midst stands a young boy, implying a bond between animals and humans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Hainan humans and deer lived side by side for thousands of years
在海南岛人与鹿共同生活了数千年

 

Within the park, a flock of about twenty-three deer is moving freely.  They are Sika (or Spotted) Deer.  As their name implies, they have white spots throughout their brown bodies.  They are shy, slowly drifting off upon my approaches.  My eager hope of stroking them instantly vanishes.  They may be does; for they have no horns.  A row of walled and sheltered cages with a few plain, dull-brown stags in each cage is in the centre of the park, which I estimate at about ten thousand square metres in size.  An hour is sufficient.

A Spotted Deer is distinguishable from a Hainan Eld’s Deer (Cervus eldi Hainanus).  The former has white spots throughout its body while the latter has a dark-brown strip on its back and two parallel lines of white dots on the sides of the strip, making the Eld’s Deer very distinctive from other species.  In addition, the stag of the Spotted Deer has its antlers curved inwards while those of the Eld’s stag are curved backwards (or outwards).  

To learn that Hainan Eld’s deers were once very bountiful throughout the island is disheartening.  A sub-species of swamp deer, these indigenous deer almost became extinct five decades ago because of their natural habitat shrinkage.  They have lived here for more than four million years.  In the nineteen-fifties, some five hundred Hainan Eld’s deer remained but subsequent poaching took a heavy toll.  Fengmu Deer Farm was thus established in 1964 as a breeding centre after their extinction in the wild.  They were reintroduced into reserves in western Hainan. 

Besides the Hainan Eld’s Deer and Sika Deer, two other species of deer are often displayed in Hainan zoos and farms: Pere David’s Deer and Red Deer.  Pere David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus) became extinct in the wild in China towards the end of the nineteenth century.  But conservation effort enabled its successful breeding in captivity and reintroduction into Beijing Milu Park and Dafeng Milu Natural Reserve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sika or Spotted Deer
梅花鹿

 

Of the seventeen varieties of deer in China, the Hainan Eld’s Deer is the most valuable for research and medicine.  To conserve the last group of twenty-six Hainan Eld’s Deer, a thirteen square-kilometre reserve was created in Dongfang City in 1976.  After a decade of recovery, the one hundred and fifty-one deer in the Datian Nature Reserve were separated into two experimental groups.  The group that was protected within an enclosure had a lower mortality rate.  As a result, the two groups were merged.  They were listed by the government as endangered in 1988. 

Fortunately, by the end of the century, the number rose to more than seven hundred, enabling some to be distributed to seven other reserves for breeding and conservation.  By 2003, when more than a thousand were roaming the reserve, adjacent woodland was added to their habitat.  To ensure the species’ survival, the Datian Reserve aims to produce at least two thousand five hundred deer.  

Although the propagation rate of deer is fifteen percent (or about one hundred fawns) annually, the actual number is however smaller.  Besides human population threat, the increase in number of pythons in the Datian reserve also poses as a threat because deer remains are found in pythons’ manure and bellies.  Each female python produces between twenty and fifty eggs annually.  The irony is that pythons are also on the endangered roll.  They are regularly captured and transferred to Hainan Python Institute.  According to Zhang Liling, the head of Hainan Python Institute and professor in the Animal Science Department of Hainan University, pythons are necessary to help control the number of wild boars and rabbits, which might otherwise deplete the food of the deer.

Regular batches of Eld’s Deer were transported to Mihou (Rhesus Macaque) Mountain, about thirty kilometres southeast of Datian Reserve.  In their natural and wild state, they roam in small groups of three to five members and are active during sunrise and sunset.  They mate during the early part of the year, and their young are born before winter.  With keen hearing and sight, they are fast runners.  They are adept, capable of jumping across five-metre wide gullies.  The stags protect their developing antlers by avoiding the dense forest.  Blossoming on the lower slopes of the mountain range, the two hundred species of plants with their fruits provide ample food supply.  Fresh grass shoots and leaves sprout during the raining season from April.  Water is in constant supply in the streams from the mountain range.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fengmu conducive green environment
屯昌枫木乡村环境优美

 

Thankfully, deer conservation is gaining wide recognition in Hainan.  Local Miao villagers have been enlisted to assist in the conservation program through workshop training, and cultivation of leucaena is promoted since the deer also feed on them.

Standing opposite the gate of Hainan Deer Farm, I ask a man and his youngest daughter if I am correctly positioned for the bus journey to Qionghai.  “Yes.”  We board the same bus.  About my age, he has lived and worked beside the deer farm for over twenty years.  Two older daughters are residing in Haikou, one with a son and the other with two daughters.  The youngest has a daughter.  Both of them are travelling to Haikou for a birthday function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Road sign: Hainan Province Fengmu Forestry Station
海南省枫木实验林场
 


(During my fourth trip in 2013, I return to Fengmu Deer Farm from the same Qionghai bus station.  Standing near the Deer Farm is Yang Yun Xian (杨云仙), a fresh university graduate who has just arrived from Lingshui.  Carrying a backpack, she has been waiting, as previously arranged, for an employee to bring her into Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve.  A gentleman in a house nearby suggests that she might be standing at the wrong entrance since another is further up the main road.  But up this street is an entrance to the reserve, say the two young local primary school girls, who are playing along the narrow street beside the Deer Farm.  It is not far away, they add.  They offer to show us the way.  We follow as they lead, walking about five hundred metres.  Unfortunately, the gate to the reserve is locked, although two pens of deer are beside it, each holding at least thirty deer and a young gentleman is feeding them with grass in turn.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does and stags
雌鹿和雄鹿

 

 

Copyright 2015

 

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