Chapter 5 5. A new wolf at the zoo

On February 20th, Chengdu was smoggy as usual.People seem to have gotten used to this kind of climate where there is no sunshine all day long. Yifeng parks the car and buys tickets.I looked at the gilded doorplate of "Chengdu Zoo" and took a deep breath. I have experienced this scene. I like animals, but I don't like seeing them in the zoo. In 2010, when Little Green was three months old at home in Chengdu, we couldn’t think of any way for him to live legally and safely in the face of his own growth and pressure from the outside world.In desperation, we once brought Green out of this gate and wanted to send him into the zoo, but little Green was instinctively afraid of the smell here.So we left him in the car and went into the zoo to explore the "wolf area" by ourselves.When I saw the only old wolf in the zoo being imprisoned in a narrow glass cell, running around silently, I gave up the idea of ​​sending Green to the zoo. This is not a place for wolves. The animals here are just alive. exhibits.

"Wolves must never be locked up!" On the way home, I hugged Little Green and said to Yifeng, "I will never go to the zoo in my life." Unexpectedly, today, two years later, in order to visit Another wolf came to Chengdu Zoo again.And this wolf was sent in because of us. The display cage of the wolf has been expanded a bit compared to before, with a visual inspection of 70 to 80 square meters. The ground has been changed to muddy land, a few small trees have been planted, and a few stones the size of a coffee table have been placed. The background wall has been made into a rockery setting. , like a small studio, with a glass curtain wall on the front, which is convenient for tourists to take pictures.On the upper left of the glass wall is a wolf profile sign.

There are two wolves imprisoned here—the old wolf and a new wolf brought from Zoige Grassland.I regret that in the days when I was feeding this wolf outside the SWAT unit, I didn't give him a name, I couldn't call him, so I had to watch quietly.Across the glass curtain wall, there is a "wolf's den" inside and crowds outside.The new wolf couldn't get used to it very much. He stuck to the base of the background wall, ran from east to west, from west to east, back and forth.He dug holes in the dirt, and he searched the rockery for every crack that might be an exit.Except when he touched noses with the old wolf, there would be a hint of intimacy in his eyes, the rest of the time, his expression was very nervous, he didn't know what these strangers surrounding him wanted to do.

Here, wolves don't howl, people "howl".The tourists knocked on the glass and yelled, admired, and discussed: "I didn't howl for a long time! I didn't look at the cards, I thought it was a dog." "This wolf is not as powerful as the wolf dog in our community." "Why are they running around?" "What can he do if he doesn't run away? Let him fight a tiger?" "He is more anxious, wolves are like this..." The middle-aged man sympathized with wolves. The female student pointed to the bare path under the wall that was trampled by wolf claws: "No wonder there is no grass growing on this path."

"He couldn't get up, and ran to the end in a few steps. Hehe!" ………… The old wolf turned a deaf ear to the tourists' comments, and he still ran around in the cell as before.After being imprisoned for so many years, the old wolf's eyes have not lost their brilliance. Perhaps he was as nervous as the new wolf when he was first imprisoned. Digging holes and finding exits were futile.He understands that the human cage is very strong, and although he no longer digs holes, he never stops running.He ran mesmerized, as if he had entered a state of forgetting both things and me; he seemed to be galloping on the dreamy grassland instead of running in a small space.When the new wolf stopped in a daze, the old wolf would pass by his side, rubbing noses and shoulders, and then, the old wolf and the young wolf continued to run wildly.

I couldn't express the guilt and depression in my heart: "This is his future life, does he know?" "Perhaps the old wolf has already told him." Yifeng said, "One of these two wolves has been locked up alone for many years, and the other has been tied up alone. Now they finally have a companion for each other." After four or five in the afternoon, the zoo was close to closing time, there were fewer people, and only sporadic tourists passed by.Yifeng and I are still guarding outside the wolf house, reluctant to leave.The noise gradually faded away, and Xinlang slowed down, hid behind the big rock, breathed a sigh of relief, and looked out of the glass wall vigilantly.When his gaze came to my side, he froze and craned his neck to watch.Maybe from his angle, the glass is reflective.

My heart warmed, and I hurriedly squatted in front of the curtain wall, avoiding the slanting rays of the setting sun, breathed on the glass, pulled up my sleeves, and wiped the glass so that he could see more clearly.The new wolf hesitated for a long time, then timidly leaned out half of his body from behind the stone, buried his head and neck in a posture that might hide back at any time, and carefully identified the figure outside the wall...Suddenly, his eyes lit up, excited I had to jump out, ran towards me with bowed head and ears, anxiously touched the palm of my hand against the glass with the tip of its nose, and stuck out its tongue to lick my hand.He still remembers me!I was almost in tears, and hurriedly raised my other hand, wanting to touch him too... Unfortunately, we couldn't reach each other.

The collar and iron chain on the new wolf's neck have been removed, leaving a circle of scars around the neck, looming in front of the shoulders. "If I had cut off his collar for him on New Year's Eve, his fate might have been completely different; if we had bought him then, we could have released him back to the grassland..." "No, if you buy him, more wolf cubs will be taken out of their nests. You understand the truth." Yifeng said, "Don't regret it, be optimistic, and see its positive side every step of the way. , you have the strength to run like a wolf."

I really felt powerless. I caressed the cold curtain wall with my hand, and the white air I exhaled condensed on the glass, blurring the man and the wolf.In a trance, I always feel that the side of the glass is Green.What would he have thought if we had chosen this kind of life for him?Back then, when I rescued Little Green, I had to take him back to the city because the grassland had no treatment conditions.Now, we mistakenly thought that this wolf was Green, and ran to Ruoergai again. In the end, another wolf came to the city. Is there no place for rescued wolves to go except the city?How much I hope that the prairie wolves will no longer live in exile, but can live freely and with dignity in their own grassland.

"Anyway, he can at least live here." Yifeng said. "It's not living, it's just not dying..." "As long as you don't die, there is hope. The more adversity you face, the less you can speak of despair. If you have no hope of living, then you are really dead. You see, this old wolf has been imprisoned for so many years, even if he can't see a way out. , He is still working hard, maybe he firmly believes that one day he will be able to rush out, for this day, he will not stop. Nothing is more terrible than accepting fate." We didn't leave the wolf house until the zoo was closed.The attitude of the new wolves standing behind the glass wall and looking up is frozen in my memory. I know they will continue to run tomorrow. This is the only effort they can make alive.

After returning home from the zoo, the desire to see Greene again ran wild in our hearts. I sold the house, Yifeng sold his digital imaging studio, raised enough money, bought a new off-road vehicle, and bought various equipment-video cameras, cameras, super telephoto lenses, hidden cameras, drones , laptops, camping tents, lighting equipment, generators, solar energy, pots and pans, food, bedding and clothing...everything we can think of is prepared.After more than 40 days of preparation, we returned to the grassland with a car full of luggage and equipment. We have two wishes, the biggest wish is to find Green, and we want to hug a free wolf tightly in the world without cages and barriers.I must see with my own eyes that Green is alive and running on the prairie.I have been painting wild animals for more than 20 years. I see the animals in my paintings are dying. If I don’t do my best for them, what’s the point of pouring emotion into my paintings? The second wish, we want to record the grasslands that we can still see.That day, the old wolf Jiang Rong’s words touched us a lot. If the changes in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in the past 40 years made the old wolf sad and helpless, I don’t know how long the Ruoergai grassland before us can last.For more than ten years, the digital imaging studio run by Yifeng has always constructed fantastic scenery on the computer. Our virtual world is becoming more and more beautiful, but looking around, the real great rivers and mountains are getting closer and closer to us. Far.Many beautiful things have been quietly destroyed before people have had time to understand her and cherish her. I want people to know the place where Green lives, and don't let it become the swan song of the original grassland.I want to keep these records. Ten years later, forty years later, even after we die, these images and texts can tell our descendants that the Ruoergai Prairie was so beautiful in the era we lived in.