Tian'ezhou Ecological Viewing Area 天鹅洲开放生态展示区

About Tian'ezhou Ecological Viewing Area

The Yangtze Tian'ezhou Baiji National Nature Reserve lies wholly within Shishou and covers 217.77 square kilometres. It was the first reserve anywhere set up to conserve cetaceans away from their original range, and the Shishou municipal government attributes its suitability to the clean water of the old course, the absence of industrial pollution sources and hydrological conditions that suit the finless porpoise. A fishing ban took effect in 2018 and more than three hundred fishing households on Tian'e Lake moved into other work. The porpoise population in the old course has grown from five animals to 101, and 43 animals have been sent from here to other sites; the wider Tian'ezhou wetland is recorded as holding 568 species of wild plants and animals.

On the wedge of land between the Yangtze and the old course, the Shishou Milu National Nature Reserve protects Pere David's deer, known in Chinese as milu. Ninety-four animals were brought from the Nanhaizi Milu Park in Beijing in three consignments in 1993, 1994 and 2002; by the end of 2025 the National Forestry and Grassland Administration put the descendant population at 2,901, living free-range in four stable sub-populations – the reserve core, Sanheyuan south of the river, Xiaohe Yangbotan, and Dongting Lake across the provincial border in Hunan. The reserve was twice enlarged, from an original 2,000 mu to 15,000 and then 23,000 mu.

What to look for

• The Tian'ezhou old course itself, an abandoned channel of the Yangtze kept free of industrial pollution sources and used as the world's first ex-situ reserve for cetaceans
• Yangtze finless porpoises, whose population in the old course has grown from five animals to 101, with 43 more sent out to other sites
• Pere David's deer, free-ranging descendants of 94 animals brought from Beijing's Nanhaizi Milu Park in 1993, 1994 and 2002, numbering 2,901 at the end of 2025
• The wedge of low, damp grassland and woodland between the Yangtze and the old course that forms the deer reserve's core
• The wider wetland mosaic of the reserve area, recorded as supporting 568 species of wild plants and animals

Location & getting there

Getting to Tian'ezhou Ecological Viewing Area

Check the open visitor route and follow the site’s rules on distance, food and photography. Conservation areas may limit access beyond designated paths.

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