Recently, I am reading a book named as “Wolf Totem”. It was said that it is to be the first book describing the wolf in China. The story took place in grassland of Inner Mongolia, where people lead a primitive nomadic life. Mongolian people kill many wolves each year to protect their livestock, but meanwhile worship this wild animal, taking them as the god’s messengers. Their bodies would be eaten by wolves, instead of buried into earth. In this way, according to their legends, their sprits could be sent to the heaven.

People here respect wolves also because this violent creature served as the grass’s guard. Wolves could eat rats, hunt Mongolian gazelle, and catch many other wild animals that might eat grass. Therefore, horses, cows and sheep that raised by humans could have enough grass to fight for the biting cold winter and the early spring. So wolves actually helped human beings indirectly and ensured the natural balance of the grassland.

Due to these reasons, people kill wolves to control the number, but never kill all. Wolves would never disturb human beings as long as if they have enough food, for they deeply knew that human being was their only enemy on the grassland. So wolves and humans kept fighting and coexisting for thousands of years, protecting the scared land together. This balance was broken until the arrival of Han people (the largest people in China) in 1960s.

Han was a farming nation, and didn’t understand the rule of the grassland. They tried to manage the grassland like the way in farming, which was doomed to be a failure. They coveted the gorgeous sceneries and wild animals, and wanted to please their leaders by hunting swans, transplanting beautiful wild flowers, and even change the grassland into a hunting place for some important people. To increase the grain production, they change the grassland to farm. To provide more meat to other provinces, they ordered the local people to feed more sheep on the grassland, which caused irreversible damage to this land.

Han people didn’t believe in wolf totem either. They thought that people were so stupid that they trust wolves would send them to the god. Based on their opinion, wolves were absolutely bad guys. And all wolves should be killed. After several years’ hard work, with the help of modern weapons, they almost did it. Wolves were hardly seen after then.

Those managers’ dream became true: most wolves were killed and some of them went to other places. There was no threat to all domestic animals, and neither to other wild animals that also ate grass. They could plant grains as they like. Finally, the grassland became desert due to overuse. The most famous sandstorm in Beijing years ago was also the result of the desertification in the north. At that moment, people realized that they were wrong. But everything was so late, that they could not stop everything.