CHONGQING: At an altitude of about 3,300 meters, the headwater region of China’s Yangtze River shelters numerous endangered wildlife. It is in the northwestern province of Qinghai, and this is where nascent artificial intelligence (AI) technology escorts rare carps to the sanctuary.
Qinghai Lake, the country’s largest inland saltwater lake, covers around 4,400 square km and is home to the naked carp, a species endemic to the plateau. Between May and August every year, the carps travel hundreds of km upstream to spawn in the ideal fresh waters surrounding the lake and defend their offspring to the death.
The rare carps feed on algae and can help purify the water. In turn, they become easy prey for waterfowl to sustain the lake’s ecological balance.
Reeling from the steep fall in the lake’s carp population, the local government has renovated the dams along the water into a terraced breeding migration conduit for the species.
However, the over 300-km-long access makes it hard to monitor and trace illegal fishing, let alone conducting related scientific research, said Wang Luhai, a senior engineer with the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research.
CloudWalk Technology Co., Ltd., a Chongqing-based technology solution provider, got creative in safeguarding the endangered carps. –PNP
