By Peng Junjun

On 22nd January, the reporter learnt from Nantong Bureau of Ecology and Environment that the AI intelligent bird monitoring equipment installed at the coastal wetlands in Laoba Port, Hai’an by the ecology and environment department caught and identified the traces of 7 cute national treasures——Dalmatian pelicans.

As one of the important ‘stage stations’ on the migrating road of Asia-Pacific migratory birds, in every autumn and winter, at the inter-tidal zones of coastal wetlands at Laoba Port of Hai’an, batches of ‘tour groups’ of migratory birds come here to look for food and rest.

The cute national treasure——Dalmatian pelican caught by AI this time, is not only a National Level Ⅰ Protected Wild Bird, but also an IUCN Near Threatened (NT) species. The number of adults in the world is only 11 thousand to 13 thousand, and the population size is decreasing continuously still (the data comes from the official website of IUCN). The Dalmatian pelicans in the East Asia migratory zones are less than 150 only! Thus the monitoring record of the 7 birds at Laoba Port is quite rare.

The monitoring team discovered that Dalmatian pelican was not recorded in the last round of biodiversity baseline investigation of Nantong, and belonged to the new observed and recorded bird of Nantong. Historical observation records of other channels date back to 2013, which is 10 years apart from the record this time.