DUBBED as “Super Sharkman” by his colleagues, Yang Xucong, director of the Yantian District Marine Eco-protection Service Center, has rescued seven people in the Meisha sea area.

Yang said that he likes his nickname, because as a guardian of the ocean eco-environment he needs to have the same untamed passion as a shark, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Born and raised in Meisha, the 36-year-old is dedicated to protecting the area’s ocean ecology. He was honored as one of the “10 Shenzhen Outstanding Youths” earlier this month.

The service center, set up in November 2012, has formed a marine eco-protection team consisting of 11 full-time members and 226 registered members, including 20 swimming coaches, 38 lifeguards and volunteers.

According to Yang, the team members sometimes have to use their rock climbing or diving skills to pick up trash along the coastal line. Volunteers have retrieved 70 tons of rubbish floating in the sea and 7 tons of garbage from the seafloor since November 2012.

The team members also save tourists from danger every now and then, with 25 people having been rescued. “We once saved two landlubbers trying to swim from the seashore to an island that is 1.5 kilometers,” he said. “Their plastic swim rings had deflated due to air leakage.”

Another important part of Yang’s job is to protect and cultivate corals in the Meisha sea area. Since the center launched a coral conservation project last year, 2,500 corals have been planted, and another 20,000 to 50,000 corals will be grown this year.

Yang said that he saw a lot of corals in the sea when he was a child, but the corals had gradually disappeared over the past two decades. “I wish that our children could also see the ocean that I saw when I was a child. With manual intervention, we might be able to achieve this goal in five to 10 years,” he said.

(Zhang Yang)