武汉河里冒出上千只鸭子？最新进展

Fifty-five-year-old duck farmer Huang Shengli from Wuhan, Hubei province, has been consumed with anxiety these days. He raised more than 30,000 ducks, with sales contracts already finalized and the ducks due for market in just five or six days. In the early hours of May 26, torrential rain sent river levels surging, submerging his duck sheds and sweeping over 20,000 ducks away.

"The flood came rolling down in massive surges. I tried to save my ducks but ended up trapped in the raging water," Huang recalled. He was pulled to safety thanks to the timely arrival of firefighters and local police officers.

After countinghis stock, only roughly 10,000 ducks remained on his farm. "Over 20,000 ducks washed away. At a market price of 35 yuan ($5.17) per duck, I've suffered losses exceeding 700,000 yuan,"he said. "The current was far too powerful for me to herd them back; I could only stand by and watch them get carried off."

On May 27, a resident filming along the river chanced upon thousands of ducks drifting downstream amid choppy waters. After the video was posted online, it drew widespread attention from netizens. In the days that followed, kind-hearted members of the public, river patrol teams, police,and firefighters joined forces to help him retrieve his lost ducks.

Thanks to persistent searches and passers-by scooping up stray ducks along the river, over 2,000 ducks have been recovered so far, recouping around 60,000 to 70,000 yuan in losses. "Anyone who passed by stopped to lend a hand; some 20 to 30people have helped me along the route. Without them, I wouldn't have gotten back even these 2,000 ducks."

Huang has received a steady stream of tip-off calls about his missing ducks. "I've taken countless calls from kind-heartedstrangersthese past couple of days, and I'm grateful to everyone."

Qian Zhengyi, deputy secretary-general of the Changjiang Conservation Foundation, said that more than 23,000 fishery patrol officers across the Yangtze River basin have joined the search. While carrying out routine protection patrols for the Yangtze finless porpoise, staff along riverfront areas in Anhui, Jiangxi, and Jiangsu provinces have kept a sharp lookout for the drifting duck flocks.

On Tuesday, staff from the water affairs bureau of Jiang'an district, Wuhan, together with enthusiastic volunteers, spotted around 200 to 300 lost ducks beside a pond under a bridge during patrols along the Zhujia River.

At approximately 9:40 am on Friday, Li Bangwen, a Yangtze River patrol officer from Wangjiang county in Anqing, Anhui province, and his colleagues spotted a sprawling flock of ducks while patrolling by boat near the Yangwan River estuary, with an estimated 2,000 ducks in total.

"I knew instantly these weren't wild ducks — wildfowl never gather in such huge numbers,"Li said. Li added that fast summer river currents keep the flock highly mobile, and the ducks could drift further downstream at any time. Lacking specialized capture vessels and professional catchers, patrol personnel cannot corral the ducks for the time being.

The Fuhuan River runs through Suizhou, Xiaogan,and Wuhan in Hubei before merging as a tributary into the Yangtze. The Yangwan River estuary sits about 420 kilometers downstream from the river's confluence with the Yangtze in Wuhan.

After viewing the photos, Huang confirmed that the ducks were his lost stock. "All my ducks are egg-laying females; there's no room for mistake."

Huang is still searching nonstop for his remaining missing ducks. The 30,000 ducks were not conventionally caged livestock; instead, they were free-range "fitness ducks"that roamed and swam outdoors daily. Huang fed his flock unpolished rice, wheat, and a small amount of formulated feed, plus river snails, small fish, insects,and wild grass seeds. Unlike fully caged ducks surviving solely on commercial feed, their constant outdoor exercise results in firmer meat and superior nutritional value, selling for 3 to 5 yuan more per head on the market than factory-farmed counterparts. 

The extreme downpour pushed water levels on the Fuhuan River 2.2 meters above the flood warning line. Numerous poultry farmers in flood-hit areas also had their livestock swept away by surging floodwaters, causing widespread financial damage to rural households across the region.

跟着China Daily

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