A convoy of ten vehicles came from afar, trailing clouds of dust, and stopped at the entrance to the mountain patrol team's base.
"Get down! Hurry up!" Samba and the others shouted as they dragged several bound people off the truck.
"What happened? What happened?" Shao Yunfei practically flew down, snapping photos with his camera as he curiously questioned them.
White Chrysanthemum shoved him aside in annoyance. "Get out of the way. Stop being a nuisance."
So Shao Yunfei went to ask Duojie instead.
Just then, Wang Yan wandered over and handed out cigarettes to Duojie and the others.
Duojie took a deep drag, looking troubled. "They were harvesting brine shrimp. We ran into them in the mountains and brought them back while we were at it."
Brine shrimp were crustaceans that lived in saline waters, reaching 0.7 to 1.5 centimeters in length as adults. They were highly nutritious and just the right size, so some people used them as feed for fish and shrimp fry. Their price had been driven very high.
Still, compared with poachers and gold prospectors, harvesting brine shrimp was honest hard-earned money. But it was illegal too, damaging the aquatic environment and undermining the sustainability of the resource.
Harvesting brine shrimp had to be controlled in quantity and limited to certain periods. Machi County did just that, allowing harvesting only from September through November, primarily through official operations.
Those privately harvesting brine shrimp illegally in Bolamula, draining the resource dry and affecting its sustainable use, naturally had to be cracked down on hard.
Zhacuo came over as well. "Duojie, just detain them and fine them for harvesting brine shrimp. Why are you so downhearted?"
White Chrysanthemum said, "Think about it, Zhacuo. The province and city made such a huge show of cracking down on poachers