Alibaba Volunteers' Great Efforts to Protect Dongting Lake Cowfish

23 Alibaba environmental protection volunteers from Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha and Hong Kong gathered in Yueyang on April 13. They searched for cowfish, measured the water quality, cleared illegal fishing gears, and tweeted their findings and thoughts in the Alibaba Public Micro-blog, in an attempt to appeal to the public for combined efforts concerning protection of Dongting Lake and Yangtze River's ecological environment.

Alibaba Group, this year, has paid close attention to Yueyang Cowfish Protection Association. As soon as they arrived in Yueyang, on the evening of April 12, 23, volunteers conducted intensive discussions with the association members till late night .

On the morning of April 13, these volunteers held an on-the-spot investigation along the Dongting Lake and reported predation of over 10 cowfish. About 20 tweets regarding cowfish were released by Chen Yanlin, one of the volunteers from Beijing while other volunteers had nearly 100,000 hits within one hour. They believed that with the help of micro-blogs in the protection status of cowfish, a second-level protected animal in China can be upgraded into the first level.

Volunteers then moved to Chenglingji River to measure its water quality. They voiced their desire and optimism that cowfish in Dongting Lake would be able to live in clean water again.