Forest protection starts with picking up a lynx girl

Chapter 424 I'm Not Here to Steal the Baby

Jin Ya brought back the prey to feed her children. When she saw the gray and white little lynx, she put down the prey and called out to the little lynx. Then she put the fresh prey on the feeding table that Chen Ying had specially set up for her.

It is made of cement and has grooves around it. After flushing the stone platform, the water flows directly out of the room along the grooves.

Jin Ya jumped onto the iron cage, opened the door skillfully, jumped down with the little lynx in her mouth, put it on the stone platform, and then called the gray and white little lynx to come and eat together.

She is just like a gentle mother in the human world who entertains her children and friends.

The gray and white little lynx was a little hungry, but it had never eaten food given by other adult animals. When it was called, the little gray and white looked a little confused.

Just then, its mother came in, holding a fat pika in her mouth.

This amount of meat is not enough to fill a full grown lynx, but it is a good snack for children.

Following Jin Ya's example, Ms. Lynx threw the pika on the stone platform, called Little Gray White, and followed Jin Ya out.

Next is the parenting salon time for the ladies.

Chen Ying came in halfway through and took a look but didn't care about anything else. He received a notice from the Forestry and Grassland Bureau saying that a herdsman had found a musk deer that had died accidentally in the alpine meadow area at the junction of the experimental area and the buffer zone.

It is not uncommon for animals to die in the wild, and the herder just took a look out of curiosity, wanting to know what animal had bitten the adult male musk deer to death.

When we arrived, we found that the cause of death of the musk deer seemed a little unusual.

"The herders can't tell whether it was caused by human or wild animal attack, but they feel that the cause of death is unusual, so the Forestry and Grassland Bureau wants me and the police to go over and take a look. That place belongs to the station area under another management bureau, so I have to go there first to meet up with the police."

Uncle Zhaxi sneered. What do you mean by unusual? It must be either a human or a beast. How could a third party cause the accidental death of a musk deer?

Please respect science!
Chen Ying had seen the forest musk deer, but he had never seen the horse musk deer.

(Black Musk Deer, a cute little vegetarian with long canine teeth)

There are many species of musk deer. The most common species in Jiamugou is the forest musk deer. In Heyuan, more than 20 years ago, herders saw black musk deer and red musk deer near the mountain canyons.

However, due to overgrazing by humans and hunting of musk deer for their larvae, it is now difficult to see musk deer and black musk deer.

Especially the black musk deer, its agile figure is almost never seen anywhere else except in the mountainous areas of southeastern Tibet and neighboring countries.

Dao Meihua stayed at the first aid station waiting for the next opportunity to enter the no-man's land to look for Rhodiola rosea.

Yin Li said that the latest large-scale mountain patrol will be scheduled for next month, during which they will pass through two areas where Rhodiola rosea is distributed. Dao Meihua can go with them. If they can't find it this time, they can only come again next year.

The other side was in a hurry, so Chen Ying explained the matter to Uncle Zhaxi and Sun Qihai and set off.

I walked a long way out and then I realized that Hei Jin had been hiding in the car without me noticing.

After stopping the car for inspection and calling Uncle Zhaxi to confirm that Heijin was the only one in the car, Chen Ying reluctantly took Heijin with him on the road.

Fortunately, there is a small refrigerator in the car, so I can buy some jelly for it when I pass by the herdsmen’s village.

We set out in the morning and arrived at our destination at four in the afternoon.

After the police officer met up with Chen Ying, they didn't have time to say anything else and ran straight to the place where the musk deer died.

"We already have colleagues who have gone there first, and have sent a lot of photos. It looks like an unnatural death, and Musk is missing too."

Wild animals will not kill musk deer for their scent, so it can be seen that it has been basically determined that someone is illegally poaching them.

"The problem now is that we can't tell how the musk deer died. The herder who found it said there were no scars on its body and no other animals or birds were pecking at it. He initially thought the musk deer was still alive but just injured. Later, he found that it had not moved for a long time, so he went to take a look and confirmed that it was dead."

The herdsman also took a lot of photos just in case.

Chen Ying's car was abandoned in the police station next to the maintenance station, and he took Hei Jin into the police car. On the way, he looked at the photos and videos sent to him by the police, and indeed he could not see any scars.

But in two photos, Chen Ying found that the leg bones of the musk deer looked a little strange, as if they were broken.

Who is so bored and bold to use a musk deer for orthopedic practice? It's a top-notch student in the country, and he wants all the food and lodging included?
When we arrived at the destination, there were already two policemen and a staff member from the management station guarding there. There were also two men dressed as herdsmen next to them, who were talking to the staff member of the management station with gestures.

Chen Ying didn't understand the local dialect very well. He put on gloves and a mask, walked over to the musk deer and started checking it.

Xiao Heijin followed him and approached the musk deer's body and sniffed it for a long time.

"We have checked both sides and there are no signs of poaching."

When they saw the sachets disappear, they immediately thought it was poaching.

But the problem is that there are musk deer farms that specialize in raising forest musk deer, and their technology for extracting scent from live musk deer is also very mature. After extracting, they can continue to raise the musk deer and let it continue to produce scent. There is no need to kill a musk deer for such a small amount of musk.

Solving cases is not Chen Ying's specialty. He came here to solve the mystery of Ma Musk's death.

Half an hour later, Chen Ying stood up, took off her gloves and mask and put them into the medical waste bag.

"This musk deer was killed by human beings. The cause of death was starvation."

"Ah, hungry?"

"Yes, the leg bone of this musk deer was broken, probably caused by being hit. After it died, it was reconstructed and the scene was faked. Maybe the person thought that after the musk deer died, its body would be eaten by animals on the grassland, and when the bones were scattered, no one would suspect anything wrong."

"But if you say so, why did he restore the musk deer's leg bones? They were going to be eaten anyway, so why not just leave them there?"

"Maybe they are afraid that someone passing by will notice something. After all, if it is not treated, even ordinary people can easily see the abnormality of the musk deer leg bone."

Sometimes the criminal's thought process cannot be guessed by common sense. Chen Ying is not a criminal investigation major, so he can only do what he can do and leave the rest to professionals.

"By the way, the method of extracting musk is very sophisticated. It is probably done by an experienced person. You can start from this point to trace the case."

Chen Ying had seen the musk gland sacs before, and even he might not be able to extract them so cleanly. It would be impossible to do this without hundreds of times of practice in extracting musk.

Heijin waited for him to finish talking to the other person, then went up to him, bit his pants and dragged him to the side.

Chen Ying was almost staggered by his pulling, luckily her belt was tied tightly, otherwise her underwear would have been exposed.

After following Heijin for about fifty or sixty meters, it barked a few times at a small mound of earth and began to dig.

Chen Ying was a little confused at first, but then seemed to remember something and quickly called a policeman to help.

"Do you have any digging tools in your car? Hei Jin seems to have found something."

There were no tools for digging, but there were car repair tools and a few large wrench handles that could barely be used to dig the soil.

One person filmed the work while the other two helped dig, and soon they dug out something wrapped in plastic film from under the mound of earth.

Heijin called out to the package twice, then looked up at Chen Ying with an expression that looked like he was asking for praise.

The policeman carefully opened the package and saw that it was indeed the musk that had been taken off.

"Strange, why do you take the musk off but not take it away?"

"Could it be that he hid it on purpose and will come back to get it after the incident is over?"

It's not impossible. After all, if Musk is taken out now, the police will be able to find him by following the clues when the time comes.

It will be fine if he comes back to pick it up later. He can just use the excuse that he bought it somewhere else.

If I hadn't brought the black gold this time, I'm afraid that guy would have gotten away with it.

Chen Ying couldn't help with what happened next, so she simply went back to the car and wait for them.

The police comrades will also need to inquire about the situation from the herder who reported the case, and may need to visit two surrounding pastures.

Dead musk deer do not require human intervention. After they leave, the "grassland scavengers" will naturally come to clean up.

"Doctor Chen, we still need to go to the ranch to take a look. How about you and Mao Cuo go to their house to rest for a while? I'll call you when we leave?"

Maocuo is the herdsman who called the police. His wife is Donglin. She cannot speak Chinese and does housework and takes care of the children at home.

There are a total of four families grazing their livestock on this summer pasture. They will have to go back to spend the winter in a while.

In the past two years, they would not leave in the winter. However, since the establishment of the nature reserve, regulations require them to leave the summer pasture in early October to allow the grasslands here to rest and recuperate.

In addition, the conditions on the pastures are better in winter, and you can buy or store dry feed for winter livestock. The climate is also warmer, so your livestock or even people will not be frozen to death by blizzards.

The herdsmen’s tents that Chen Ying saw in the herdsmen’s village were somewhat different from those on the ranch.

The herdsmen's village is almost settled, with tents and brick houses. There is a lot of space inside, and it is very neat and beautiful.

But the tents needed for the transfer are not that good. The space inside is smaller and has to be filled with daily necessities, and there must also be space for rest.

Donglin made milk tea and tsampa for them.

Chen Ying can barely drink milk tea now, but he really can't swallow food like tsampa.

Maocuo and the others also knew that not everyone was used to the diet in their pastoral area. Seeing that Chen Ying didn't eat tsampa, they served him a bowl of yogurt.

Although the taste of the yogurt is very different from the yogurt that everyone usually eats in the city, the taste is acceptable after adding dried fruits.

Seeing that Chen Ying was not being polite and was eating with big mouthfuls of the bowl, Donglin finally smiled with relief.

Maocuo has four children. The eldest did not want to continue studying after graduating from elementary school and stayed at home to help with herding.

The second child is a freshman in the school over at the Winter Ranch. He is a boarding student and can only go home during the holidays after the semester is over.

The third and fourth children are twins. They are five years old this year and have not yet started school.

The situation of several other families is similar to his. The older children did not go out to work after graduation, but helped the family herd. The younger ones did not go to school. There is no such thing as kindergarten in the pastoral area. It is a rare achievement to send children of school age to school according to regulations.

In pastoral areas with better conditions, schools are bigger, accommodation conditions are better, and there are more children studying.

Donglin doesn't speak Chinese, and Chenying doesn't speak the local dialect, so they can't communicate at all and can only keep eating. Just when things were awkward, the twins from Donglin's family ran in.

Behind them, a mixed-breed Tibetan Mastiff ran in.

The Tibetan Mastiff was relatively large and had already reached adulthood. When it saw Heijin lying at Chen Ying's feet, it let out a threatening growl.

Although Black Gold is small, it is quite imposing.

It suddenly stood up and roared at the big Tibetan Mastiff.

The older twin brother wanted to come over and hug Heijin. Heijin opened his mouth and wanted to bite him, but Chen Ying picked him up and held him in his arms.

"Don't touch it, it has a bit of a fierce temper."

Chen Ying comforted the child awkwardly, while the hostess Dong Lin beside her frowned and yelled at her son.

The twin sister came over and looked at Heijin with her big eyes, unable to hide the love in her eyes.

"Dog, very pretty." Her Chinese was not standard, but at least I could understand her.

"My big dog is also good-looking, and it can also herd."

The little girl hugged the big dog's neck with her backhand, and the ferocious-looking adult Tibetan Mastiff instantly became docile.

With two children around, Chen Ying simply followed them out for some fresh air. It was too awkward to sit inside and she didn't know what to do. She was almost full from drinking milk tea and eating yogurt.

Leaving the tent, Chen Ying saw yaks moving slowly in the distance.

"Little sister, how many cows do you have at home?"

"Three hundred. My brother said we have three hundred cows."

Among these four families, the one with the most cows has more than 500, and the one with the least has about 200.

Three hundred cows are already a huge asset. But because of the herders’ beliefs, they rarely kill animals except for necessary needs, and some of the cattle and sheep they raise die of natural causes.

The Donglin family's yaks increase in calves by about 10% every year, but only a dozen or so can grow up.

The biggest threat to yaks on the grassland is not snow leopards or brown bears, but wolves.

Every year at least half of the calves are killed by wolves, if they are not eaten completely.

The worst incident was three years ago, when all the calves of the neighbor's house were bitten to death overnight. Several cows of the Donglin family also died.

Even if there is compensation from the insurance company, the amount of compensation is far from enough to compensate for the losses.

The two children chatted with Chen Ying in their broken Mandarin, and the little girl even pulled Chen Ying to take him to see her secret treasure.

The little boy muttered anxiously, not wanting his sister to take Chen Ying over. As a result, the little girl put her hands on her hips and stomped her feet angrily. The little boy could only sigh and give in.

"Okay, come on, I'll take you there."

After walking for more than a hundred meters with the two children, we found a stream.

It's a very small stream, and you can't tell there is water here unless you look carefully.

This stream is the drinking water supply for several families nearby, and animals upstream and downstream also come to the stream to drink water.

Chen Ying took a look and found that this place was about two hundred meters away from where the musk deer died.

Logically speaking, a solitary animal like the musk deer would not come to the ranch to move around. Moreover, the male musk deer like to climb steep mountains and are very agile and swift, so it is hard to imagine that anyone could break its legs.

The little girl took Chen Ying and walked along the stream for a while. In a small pond, there were several stones with beautiful shapes and colors scattered around.

Chen Ying is not a member of the geological team, but he knows someone who is a geologist.

After taking a photo and sending it to the unfortunate classmate who was still recovering at the Heyuan Management Station, he put away his phone without caring.

Just then, a teenager came on a motorcycle and stopped near them.

Chen Ying saw that he was carrying a professional camera and there were other matching equipment on the rear rack of his motorcycle.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

The boy speaks Mandarin and is very alert.

"Brother, he is..." The little girl chattered about Chen Ying's identity and background, and pointed at the black gold next to her and said a lot.

Chen Ying didn't understand a word he said, but she could feel that the boy's attitude had softened a lot.

"So you are a veterinarian. By the way, you can treat livestock, but can you treat wild animals?"

Chen Ying's eyes widened slightly, "Is there any animal that is injured or sick?"

"There's a snow leopard with cubs on the mountain over there. The mother leopard seems to be in a bit of a bad condition and hasn't come out to hunt for a week. I was worried that something was wrong with her, so I went up to take a look, but I didn't dare get close. By the way, there's another big cave near the cave where she's raising her cubs. It's the territory of a male snow leopard."

Upon hearing this, Chen Ying asked him to wait for a moment while he went to take the medical box with him.

The boy also wanted to go back to put away the camera, and along the way he told him a lot about the snow leopard.

"It came here three years ago. It should have just grown up then. This is its first time to have a cub. I have been paying attention to them since the male snow leopard was courting it. Now the little snow leopard is two months old."

The boy also showed him photos. The entire process, from the time the baby was born with his eyes still closed, to the moment he opened his eyes, as pure blue as the sky, and then to the time when his eyes gradually turned yellowish brown one month later, were recorded by the camera.

The boy likes photography. In addition to herding every day, he likes to take his camera to the mountains to take pictures of snow leopards, Tibetan foxes, blue sheep, pikas, etc.

In his lens, all kinds of animals have the beauty of primitive wildness, and also the pure agility like the elves of snow mountains.

When I came out of the tent and passed by the place where the musk deer was dead, I saw vultures pecking at its flesh.

A little further away, the shadow of a wolf appeared and disappeared from time to time.

"These wolves are so bad." The young man muttered a few words and drove Chen Ying towards the wolf pack, but when they were about to get close, he turned slightly and went around them and went up the mountain.

"These wolves are very vengeful. If I hurt them, they will come to take revenge at night." The boy was angry, but helpless.

The car was parked on the hillside, and we could only rely on our legs to get up.

Fortunately, the place chosen by the snow leopard was not particularly difficult to walk to. With the help of the boy, Chen Ying climbed up with difficulty and reached a place more than ten meters below the snow leopard cave and hid there.

"Let me take a look at the situation first. I need to determine the current condition of the female snow leopard before deciding whether it needs to be rescued."

After looking through the telescope for a while, Chen Ying discovered that the female leopard seemed to be in really bad condition. She lay there motionless, and the little snow leopard next to her nudged her hard but she did not respond.

"The situation doesn't seem good. I'll go over and take a look. You wait here."

Chen Ying couldn't let the boy go on adventures with him.

"I'll go with you. I can help you."

Chen Ying disagreed and held the boy's shoulders.

"I'll go, and you help me pay attention to the surrounding situation, especially the movements of the male snow leopard. If other animals approach, you have to remind me to avoid them."

The boy pouted, then nodded after a moment, "Okay, I'll be here to help you keep watch."

After securing the medical box on his back, Chen Ying continued to climb.

The slope here is quite steep, but there are many places to gain leverage.

It took him about twenty minutes to climb the distance of more than ten meters.

On such a high mountain, Chen Ying didn't dare to stand up and walk. If he slipped, he wouldn't be able to even form a human figure.

I crawled to the entrance of the snow leopard cave and found that the female snow leopard had fallen into a coma. When I touched her ears, they were very hot, obviously she was sick.

Of course, the ears alone cannot confirm whether the snow leopard has a fever. The best way to confirm is to measure the rectal temperature, but this is in the wild. If he dares to anally rape the leopard, if the other party suddenly attacks, there will be no place to hide.

In addition to the rectum, the abdomen and armpits can also be measured, but the accuracy is not high.

But who is Chen Ying? He has so many cats at home, and he can feel whether there is a problem with the normal body temperature of a snow leopard by just covering it with his palm.

All three places were hot, and he had been touching the female snow leopard for so long but she didn't react at all, and she didn't want him at all.

The mother snow leopard must be taken away for treatment, and the baby snow leopard must be taken away as well.

It was impossible for him to take the mother and child away by himself. After assessing the situation, Chen Ying first provided emergency treatment for the mother snow leopard.

Then he picked up the little snow leopard and put it in his arms, and took the cub away first.

When the boy saw Chen Ying capture the snow leopard cub, he hurried downstairs to meet him.

"Hurry up and call your father and uncles over, and bring ropes and other things. We need to get the snow leopard down."

The boy was stunned for a moment, nodded repeatedly, and ran swiftly to where the motorcycles were parked at the foot of the mountain.

Chen Ying looked at the snow leopard cub in his arms. The little guy was shivering in his coat, and the words "pitiful, helpless and weak" were written all over his face.

After teasing the little leopard, Chen Ying looked up and suddenly met the eyes of a strong snow leopard.

The other party did not seem to expect to see humans here. Its eyes widened. When it was about to make a threatening sound, the little snow leopard in Chen Ying's arms pushed its little head out.

The expression on the snow leopard opposite changed from confusion to shock to anger. Chen Ying had no doubt that it would pounce on him in the next moment.

Is it too late for him to return the little leopard to the other party now?

(End of this chapter)