Photo story: Wild China
Treat yourself to a visual feast from the east and explore an explosion of biodiversity in Yunnan and Sichuan
COVER STORY
The gaze of a golden snub-nosed monkey is strikingly human – yet it was long hunted for meat, fur and traditional medicines. Today, perhaps 15,000 individuals survive in montane forests of Sichuan, southern Shaanxi and Hubei provinces.
This Endangered species is now strictly protected and, with hunting of wild animals banned in China, faces a brighter future.
As well as the characteristic bluish face and golden fur, this individual sports curious growths at the corners of his mouth, telltale features of a male; his long, sharp canine teeth are thankfully not bared.
The Gaoligongshan tree frog, pictured in the namesake mountains of Yunnan, is one of dozens of endemic amphibian species in the province – which, along with the uplands of neighbouring Sichuan, comprises China’s most biodiverse region. Its varied habitats range from mountain tundra and glaciers to lush tropical and subtropical forests, with countless microhabitats between. “It’s a production centre of species,” says Staffan Widstrand, who captured these images for the Wild Wonders of China project.
ABOVE The Tangjia River babbles through the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve (NNR), established in 1978 in the karst foothills of the Tibetan Plateau, protecting subtropical forests that blanket 96 per cent of its 40,000ha.
Among its 3,700 species of flora and fauna, this reserve in northern Sichuan is home to the ginkgo, a ‘living fossil’ tree little changed in hundreds of millions of years.
RIGHT A male oriental pied hornbill takes flight, having completed a delivery of figs to his mate in Tongbiguan NR, western Yunnan. The female has been walled into the nesthole using mud and droppings, leaving only a small slot through which to receive food while she incubates her brood, protected from predators such as martens or other hornbills. This reserve in Dehong prefecture has become known as Hornbill Valley, renowned as one of China’s top birdwatching areas, and home to 500-plus avian species.
BELOW Perhaps only 200–300 skywalker hoolock gibbons survive in China, clinging on in the forested hills defining the Yunnan-Myanmar border – Staffan photographed this female in Tongbiguan NR. Identified as a distinct species as recently as 2017, this arboreal ape was dubbed for the Chinese characters of its scientific name, which translate as ‘heaven’s movement’.
ABOVE Visit Sichuan’s Labahe NR in autumn and you might get a clear view of a red panda feasting on berries – at other times of year, they’re hard to spot in the large, dense forests of the Himalayan foothills. Despite its name, this Endangered racoonlike mammal is not remotely like the giant panda – indeed, the sole known surviving species of the Ailurid family is more closely related to skunks and weasels.
Though it resembles a cross between a wildebeest and a muskox, the Sichuan takin is more closely related to wild sheep. Browsing the eastern Tibetan plateau, herds migrate from summer feeding grounds in alpine meadows, descending to winter in forested valleys.