Naked Carp Migration Viewing Area 湟鱼洄游观景区

About Naked Carp Migration Viewing Area

The naked carp — 裸鲤, commonly 湟鱼 — is the only fish living and breeding in Qinghai Lake, which the provincial page calls China's largest saltwater lake. From the Dragon Boat Festival each year, the page records, mature carp crowd to the river mouths, pass through brackish water and swim in numbers into the freshwater rivers of the lake basin to spawn, and it quotes Qinghai Lake fish experts calling the scale and spectacle of the migration a world wonder. The same page records that dams built across the rivers and water diverted for irrigation blocked the migration, shortened it, greatly reduced the spawning grounds and left parent fish gathered below the dams to die stranded and starved of oxygen. In 2015, it records, the province spent 36.72 million yuan — the page gives the sum as 3672万元 — on opening the migration channel and raising the carp population, removing the water-blocking dams on the Shaliu, Quanji and Harga rivers and building seven stepped high-overflow-weir fish ladders to suit the fish's habits.

At the viewing platform at Gangca's Naked Carp Home, the page describes dense shoals of parent fish climbing the steps of the open migration channel in the riverbed and clearing the low risers, a sight it says draws visitors. In a passage the page quotes, the 15-centimetre step was settled on after experiment, improvement and expert review and on data showing a fish can jump one and a half times its own length. The county's environment, forestry and water resources director, Guo Shouyang, is quoted saying the other six ladders have a 30-centimetre step every 1.6 m with a small pool for the fish to rest, and that a 5 m long, 50 cm high carp rest area was built in the middle of the new ladder. On the Quanji River the page records that parking, a fish-viewing corridor and other facilities were built, and that the river has become a fish-viewing scenic area. A passage it quotes gives Gangca an average elevation of 3,300 m. The Xinhua item records that in Gangca County late May to August each year is the migration season, when great numbers of carp swim upstream to spawn in the Shaliu and Buha rivers, among the freshwater rivers feeding Qinghai Lake, producing what it calls the spectacle of "half clear water, half fish", and that the naked carp — 青海湖裸鲤 — is a rare species unique to the lake and the core species of its water-fish-bird ecosystem.

What to look for

• The viewing platform at Gangca's Naked Carp Home (湟鱼家园观鱼台), where the provincial page describes parent fish climbing the open migration channel and clearing the low steps
• The fish-viewing corridor the page records on the Quanji River, which it says has become a fish-viewing scenic area
• The seven stepped fish ladders on the Shaliu, Quanji and Harga rivers, with 30-centimetre steps every 1.6 m and small resting pools, and the 5 m by 50 cm rest area in the middle of the new ladder
• The migration itself, from late May to August, when the Xinhua item says the rivers run "half clear water, half fish"
• The naked carp, 青海湖裸鲤, the rare species the Xinhua item calls the core of Qinghai Lake's water-fish-bird ecosystem

Location & getting there

Getting to Naked Carp Migration 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.

• Search for 湟鱼洄游观景区 with 海北藏族自治州 and 刚察县.