Doctoral student builds 500 “bird villas” in Mt. Ailao

"Why don’t you get a job in an office but choose to stay with birds in the mountain?” As a Ph.D. student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shao Luokang has been studying ornithological ecology for 8 years. The young man has slightly curly hair and dark skin. 

Shao Luokang is a natural bird lover, following and watching birds in his childhood. To accompany birds more often, he chose to major in ornithological ecology at the university.

When receiving his master degree, he gave up the job opportunity in the city and went into the Ailao Mountain nature reserve in southwest Yunnan to care for the birds.

"I fully adapted to life in the forest, and at times I even forgot about the traffic lights when returning to the city,” said Shao, sort of jokingly. Fortunately, his wife supports him, and now he stays in the city for ten days each month.

During his observation, Shao found it hard for birds to nest in the artificial pine forests. On the basis of all round investigation, Shao finally decided to borrow the western approach: providing birds with nesting boxes, or “bird villas” in a metaphorical sense. The practice has a history of 100 plus years, and now it is widely adopted in the west.

Through a two-year effort, Shao has built more than 500 “villas” for the birds, 22% of which have been occupied. Thanks to real-time monitoring, an increasing number of birds get settled in the man-made forest, reducing the chance of forest diseases caused by pests.

Reporting by Dang Xiaopei, Zeng Linyu, Zhou Kezhen and Chen Fei; trans-editing by Wang Shixue