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Harbin's District of
Manchuria's Nature Reserves.
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The Wetlands
Four hours' journey west of Harbin, and close to the city of Qiqihar is the Zhalong Nature Reserve.
China's largest wetland reserve, the 2175 square kilometer Zhalong Nature Reserve lies in the Songhua-Nen River plain, along the major bird migratory
route from the Russian Arctic, the Gobi desert and to Southeast Asia. Zhalong's reedbeds, ponds and marshlands provide an ideal home for almost three
hundred species of birds, including whooper swans, crane, storks, herons, grebes, ducks, geese, egret, white ibis and other water fowl.
The reserve is one of the few breeding grounds for the 'marsh grassbird' (Megalurus pryeri). Six of the world's fifteen varieties of crane are also found here. The most famous are the endangered 'red crowned crane' (Grus japonensis), a tall bird with black and white plumage and red crest. As these birds can live up to sixty years they are the Manchu and Chinese symbol of longevity. It is the bird most often depicted in Chinese art. The 'red crowned crane' mates for life, with the female laying only one or two eggs each season, over which the male stands guard. Equally famous is the 'white-napped crane.' Other rare bird species in Zhalong include the 'swan-goose' (Anser cynoides) and the Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus). Birds arrive in spring and begin breeding in summer.
For more information, please visit The Siberian Crane Wetland Project, and
Cultural China's' Heilongjiang's information site.
Living mainly in the forest depths of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces in Manchuria, the tiger has the highest category of protection in China - equal with the illusive and highly endangered panda. The Siberian tiger, the largest of all the tiger breeds, lives mainly in Siberia and north-eastern Manchuria. It is believed there are only 300 Siberian tigers left in the wild and less than 20 in China.
The majority of Siberian tigers in China live in Manchuria's Xiaoxinganling Mountains, in Heilongjiang Province and the Changbai Mountains, in Jilin Province. The World Wide Fund for Nature has included Siberian tigers in it's list as one of the world's 10 most endangered animals. In order to exhibit and cultivate the beasts, tiger gardens were established in Harbin and Mudanjiang. Almost
80 per cent of Siberian tigers in China are housed there, with some 700 hundred housed in Harbin’s Tiger Park, the only science and research center of Siberian tigers in China. Located in Manchuria, it lies within the Huangnihe River Nature Reserve, in the Changbai Mountain area of Jilin Province on the northern bank of the Songhua River. It is the largest wild natural reserve in the world dedicated to the Siberian tiger and was established by the provincial government only four years ago. Mount Changbai is the Siberian tigers' most important habitat. A hunting ban, imposed on Changbai Mountain area by the Jilin Provincial Government five years ago has increased the number of wild boars and roe and sika deer, prime prey for the tiger.
A Qing dynasty ban on forest exploitation was repealed in 1870 and this began an immediate decline in tiger numbers in the area. While tigers were hunted in great numbers after the repeal, it remained illegal to hunt or harm the white tiger; the Manchu imperial family believing white tigers to be the reincarnations of former emperors and signifying the God of the West. Harming or killing a white tiger resulted in immediate imprisonment followed by decapitation. There was no appeal. The Manchu overlords often staged elaborate hunting parties into the forests and mountains, living as their forebears did in the yurt of the steppe peoples from whom they descended. For more information on the Siberian tiger, please visit AMUR Tigers
Sharing this habitat is the endangered Amur leopard, the 'Panthera pardus orientalis.' It is the rarest big cat in the world, relatively large and yet virtually nothing is known of its habits. It is estimated their population stands at about 35 individuals remaining in the wild. In the 19th century, the range of the Amur leopard extended from south-eastern Russia, throughout Manchuria and into the Korean peninsula. After decades of habitat destruction, poaching and hunting of its prey, the Amur leopard has been restricted to a tiny fragment of its former range. Once plentiful, the Amur leopard now lives in the forests of the Sihote Alin Mountain Range where much of the year it encounters deep snow and harsh climates. It relies on roe deer, sika deer, wild boar, musk deer and small mammals such as hares for food. Sightings in the Changbai Mountains are so rare as to be major news amongst big
cat watchers. For more information on the Amur leopard, please visit THE AMUR and AMUR Leopards
The Mountains, Forests and Lakes.
The Manchurian forest eco-region supports other large mammals such as the lynx (also endangered), Arctic fox (endangered), musk deer (Moschus moschiferus), the red deer (Cervus elaphus), black bear (Selenarctos thibetanus), brown bear (Ursus arctos) and the rare goral (Nemorhaedus goral) - also known as the Gray goral. It is a small, rough-haired, cylindrical-horned ruminant native to Manchuria and the Himalayas. Common fish species are found in Amur-Heilong tributaries, including the taimen (Hucho taimen/Manchurian salmon), which can reach up to 50 kg, the Manchurian trout (Brachymystax lenok) and the Amur grayling (Thymallus grubei).
Mount Changbai is one of the scenic areas in Manchuria. The ecosystem is characterized by mixed coniferous and broadleaved trees of Korean Pine, Manchurian Ash, sub-alpine evergreen and alpine tundra, surrounding hot springs and cultivated fields; ranging along the border between China and North Korea and extending from the Manchurian provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning to the North
Korean provinces of Ryanggang and Chagang.
The range represents the mythical birthplace of Bukūri Yongšon, ancestor of Nurhaci and the Aisin Gioro imperial family, who were the founders of the Manchu state and the Qing Dynasty. The name literally means 'Perpetually White Mountain Region.' The mountains are home to over three hundred species of medicinal plants including ginseng, Asia bell (Codonopsis pilosula) and Tian Ma (Gastrodia elata). Changbai Mountains ginseng gained its fame more than four hundred years ago. 90% of the ginseng medicine exports were processed from plants produced in the Changbai Mountains. Among the rare animals living in the preserve besides the Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard are, sika deer, sable and lynx, golden eagle and black bear, all having been listed as 'rare' and under state protection.
Poetically described as 'a great piece of silk suspended from the sky' or a 'dancing silver dragon,' the thunderous Changbai waterfall is one of the most magnificent sights in the mountains. The springs, covering an area of over a thousand square meters, lie to the north of the Tianchi Lake and some nine hundred meters below the waterfall. The water temperature of some of the springs measures as high as 82 Celsius and the area is shrouded in steaming vapor all year round. As the water contains hydrogen sulphide, bathing pools have long provided hydropathical treatments believed to cure rheumatism, alcoholic related diseases, depression and other illnesses.
Tianchi Lake 天山天池 'the Celestial Lake' is one of the Changbai's most beautiful features. For a long time called 'Jade Lake' (Yaochi 瑤池), it was renamed 'Tianchi' in 1783 by Mingliang 明亮 the Third Commander (dutong 都統) of Urumqi (capital of Xinjiang province bordering Tibet). It is considered as the realm of the Queen Mother of the West and plays a major role in Manchu and
Chinese mythology. As a place where Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism practiced 'ascesis' it remains of important spiritual significance in Buddhism. As Qiu Chang Chun, a patriarch of the Quanzhen School (the 'Way of Completeness and Truth') of Taoism travelled on the road to Samarkand, where he encountered Genghis Khan, he founded a temple on the lake shore, so Tianchi remains sacred in the Taoist ethos as well.
Often likened to a sapphire fallen from heaven, clear, pristine and a tranquil blue, Lake Tianchi is surrounded by towering peaks and is some 373 metres deep. The enigma of a lake monster, considered a Manchu cousin to the Loch Ness Monster, adds to the lake's mystery. Sixteen mist covered mountain peaks and clouds mirror the lakes glittering surface. Sheer and with deep unfathomable gorges and sharp jagged rocks, the peaks all differ and in changes of weather have been likened to coiling dragons.
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