The past three decades have also witnessed Liu's devotion to building a Saunders's Gull culture via folktales, poems, songs, paintings, photographs, dances and paper-cutting activities to promote its protection.

Moreover, he has directly engaged in the restoration of the gull's habitat by initiating a program to artificially incubate alitta succinea — a marine species also known as the pile worm or clam worm — which is a major food for the bird.

From 2015 to 2017, he and his colleagues scattered about 1.1 billion pile worm larvae they had incubated over 34 hectares of coastal mud flats.

Originally, the Saunders's Gull Conservation Society had just 47 members, but now the number is more than 40,000.

"Though it is still named after the Saunders's Gull, the organization is no longer merely engaged in protecting the species. Broadly speaking, it's a society for the conservation of habitat and biodiversity," Liu told People's Daily late last year.

In 2015, the society changed its black-and-white logo to a more colorful one.

"Previously, the situation with regard to protection of the Saunders's Gull was grim. With good progress in protection work, the world of this gull has become bright and beautiful," Liu said.

[email protected]