Conservation passion for the wild at heart

Four large gorillas from the Royal Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, the Netherlands, are seen at Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo in the capital of Jiangsu province after arriving in February 2025. CHINA DAILY

At 5 am on a recent trek, when the mist was still clinging to the high ranges stretching across the north of Sichuan province, Xiao Mei was already halfway up a mountain.

A backpack was pressed against her shoulders. Inside were memory cards for an infrared camera, notebooks and spare batteries. On other treks she also carries a sleeping bag and dry food when heading to one of the six remote field camps. Some of the camps have no electricity, no phone signal, and experience weather extremes.

"The longest I have stayed out was five days," she recalled. "You carry everything on your back."

The 36-year-old is head of the research and monitoring division at the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve, which is located in Qingchuan county, Guangyuan city. Established in 1978 and designated a national nature reserve in 1986, Tangjiahe covers 40,000 hectares. Its focus is on conserving forest plants and wildlife. The primary conservation objectives are rare wildlife species, such as the giant panda, golden snub-nosed monkey and rare plant species, including the dove tree (Davidia involucrata), which is known as "a living fossil", and Fritillaria cirrhosa, or chuan bei muin Chinese, a highly valued herb used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Xiao has spent 12 years in the park. However, when she first arrived, she almost left in the first three days.

She did not grow up dreaming of becoming a conservationist. She studied plant protection at an agricultural college in Chengdu, the provincial capital, where she was born and raised, and spent two years selling fertilizer in the city's rural outskirts.

"When I applied for Tangjiahe, it was just a job," she said frankly. "I didn't have a strong concept of what a nature reserve really meant. I liked plants. I saw that the dove tree, a nationally protected species, was here, so I applied."

The region was still recovering from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, ecotourism was underdeveloped, infrastructure was limited and life was quiet.

"I couldn't accept it at first. The work felt monotonous. You had to endure loneliness. On my third day, I wanted to leave," she said.

What changed her mind was not policy or promotion, but the forest itself.

"During patrols, you see things you can't see in the city — plants growing to their own rhythm, animals moving freely. There's a feeling that all living things have a spirit. That's when I began to calm down,"Xiao said.

She started reviewing infrared camera footage, sorting through patrol data, and noticing patterns. Curiosity replaced restlessness. "You begin to ask: What is missing in the data? What haven't we understood yet?" she said.

Tangjiahe is described as one of the ecological cores of the giant panda national park. Its subtropical mountain forests have largely escaped large-scale logging. The forest regenerates naturally, with minimal human disturbance. Population pressure inside the reserve is low, and wildlife encounter rates are unusually high.

"In some reserves, you need luck to see animals," Xiao said. "Here, if you enter at random, you can see many."

Tangjiahe's wild giant panda population is remarkably stable. Thirty-nine pandas were recorded in earlier surveys and by 2025, monitoring data confirmed a total of 41.

Since 2016, the reserve has built a DNA archive for the panda population, collecting genetic samples from more than 30 individuals annually. "Every year, we basically confirm over 30 individuals through DNA. It's very stable," Xiao said.

A golden snub-nosed monkey cradles her baby at the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve in Guangyuan, Sichuan province. CHINA DAILY

Animal encounters

But numbers alone do not capture the drama that unfolds every spring.

Between March and April, Xiao and her team conduct intensive field monitoring during the panda breeding season. Since 2015, they have tracked courtship rituals and combative behavior, sometimes camping at nearly 3,000 meters above sea level.

In April 2025, she witnessed a first — three wild pandas appearing simultaneously in the same area. "In the past, we usually saw one or two," she said. "Three at once is very rare."

She remembered the sound — loud clashes echoing through the valley. "At 2,900 meters, you hear the fighting before you see them,"Xiao said.

One of the most fascinating behavioral patterns she documented was in 2024, when a female panda climbed into a tree during estrus. Below her, three males rotated positions, effectively "taking shifts" waiting for mating opportunities.

"The males start scouting about a week in advance," she said. "The tree the female chooses is usually one that allows her to observe the surroundings clearly."

In 2025, her team captured rare footage of two pandas successfully mating — an invaluable addition to long-term behavioral records.

Due to the familiarity of the sight, she said that seeing a wild panda no longer fills her with overwhelming excitement.

"Because we've recorded so many through infrared cameras. It's relatively easy to encounter them here," she said.

Tangjiahe's golden snub-nosed monkeys number around 800 and are organized into seven to 11 large social groups that constantly split and merge. Their activity altitude overlaps significantly with pandas.

In 2022, Xiao witnessed something that left a deep impression on her.

"A mother monkey carried her dead infant for two or three days," Xiao recalled. "She stayed at the edge of the group. Even when she searched for food, she held the baby."

Her facial expressions were unmistakable. "You could see grief. She avoided contact with the others. It felt no different from human mourning," she said.

Moments like this reinforce Xiao's belief that wildlife conservation is not "abstract management". "When you see that, you understand — life is life. The pain is real," she noted.

Tangjiahe's monitoring network now includes more than 400 infrared cameras. Xiao leads a small four-person research office overseeing ecological data management, supported by 36 field investigators in protection stations. Universities and research institutions assist in data analysis and publication.

Since 2019, she has shifted from front-line patrols to project leadership — coordinating data screening, managing monitoring systems and initiating research collaborations.

From mapping the full movement of individual pandas, to establishing continuous monitoring of golden snub-nosed monkeys, to expanding bird monitoring — including Sichuan's first dedicated bird monitoring station — and transforming infrared data into species interaction analysis and accessible public science education, her ambitions are clear.

"We have the data," she said. "Now we must use it better."