A 3-YEAR-LONG investigation into wildlife animal resources has led to the discovery of five new species in Shenzhen, the Shenzhen Evening News reported.

    Three of the five new species, including a newly recorded toad, frog and snake, have already been officially announced, but the other kind of toad and snake are still unknown to the public.

    The project, launched by Shenzhen’s wild fauna and flora protection office in October 2013, was conducted mainly for a national investigation into terrestrial wildlife resources. The Sun Yat-sen University was fully responsible for conducting the investigation.

    Through a three-year investigation, the project recorded a total of 498 kinds of terrestrial vertebrates in Shenzhen by Dec. 31, 2016, including 41 kinds of national-level protected animals.

    Divided into two phases from 2013 to 2016, the project adopted various investigative methods based on various species under different living conditions. The main theories and technologies that were used included biosystematics, chorology, micro-satellite, DNA molecular technique and so forth, according to the report.

    The subjects of the investigation were protected wild animals in nine key areas such as Shenzhen Bay, coastline in East Shenzhen, mangrove areas, Shenzhen Reservoir and Neilingding Island.

    According to the results of the investigation, the eastern mountainous areas have the most diverse population of terrestrial wildlife. The Wutong Mountain and Qiniang Mountain were areas with the most diverse wild animals.

    However, the investigation also found that the city had much to do in terms of protecting wildlife as human actions and the encroaching business development in some areas are causing problems for the animals living there.

    For instance, the business development in some mountainous areas in east Shenzhen is constantly causing the area under ecological control to shrink, thereby destabilizing the animal communities there.

    Also, expanding residential compounds as well as commercial buildings along seaside areas are having severe impacts on migratory birds by drastically squeezing the space where birds can live near the Shenzhen Bay area.

    What’s more, the city’s landscape planning is not doing enough to preserve local species. Though there were a higher number of birds recorded, fewer species of birds were seen in Shenzhen.

    Among all the species recorded in this investigation, as many as 20 of them were foreign species, which pose a great threat to local species and the ecological system.

    Experts from the protection office suggest that governmental departments incorporate more scientific ideas to protect local species and remind residents to make sure that the animals they release back into nature are not damaging the local eco-system.

    (Zhang Qian)