The hunter who became a protector
Cai Zhihong has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Gaoligong Mountains in Yunnan province, a range National Geographic magazine has called an “ark of life”, and which is home to evergreen broadleaved and deciduous forests, as well as bamboo woodlands.
“In the Gaoligong, Cai can tell you which route is a passage for wild animals with just a quick glance,” said Fan Pengfei, a professor at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. “He can tell an animal’s gender and age by the sound of its voice and can guess their species and weight by analyzing its footprints.”
Fan has studied gibbons in Yunnan for more than 10 years.
Cai, who is Fan’s research partner, is a forest ranger born in a small village at the foot of the Gaoligong, and one of those known for the discovery of a new species of primate known as the Skywalker hoolock gibbon (Hoolock Tianxing), the only gibbon species to have been named by Chinese scientists.
Since 2007 Fan’s team has been studying eastern hoolocks (Hoolock leuconedys). After analyzing years of morphological and genetic information, and with the support of international colleagues and experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, they were able to classify eastern hoolocks living in the Gaoligong as a separate species, Skywalker (Tianxing) gibbon.
“We named them ‘Tianxing’ after a passage in an ancient Chinese classic that says ‘as nature’s movement is ever vigorous, so must a gentleman ceaselessly strive’,” Fan said.
“This hoolock gibbon spends nearly its entire life in the upper levels of the forest, like a hermit walking across the sky.”
Like other gibbons, Skywalkers have no tail. They are covered in short fur, almost jet-black on males and beige on the females, and their most distinctive characteristics are thin white eyebrows and darker beards.
In 2019 the International Union for Conservation of Nature added the Skywalker gibbon to its Red List as an endangered species.
It is estimated that there are fewer than 150 in the wild, and they are among the world’s 25 most endangered primates.
Cai played a crucial role in their discovery. He and the other rangers have spent years in the forests, working 25 days a month chasing after the gibbons and gathering field observations and fecal samples.
Cai, in his 50s, learned to hunt with his grandfather. He sees the mountains and its animals as part of his life. “But we don’t hunt gibbons.”
Cai is a member of the Lisu ethnic group, whose culture maintains strong generational taboos against hunting gibbons, he said.
“We believe they are primate gods that can foretell the weather or even a death with their singing, and killing them brings misfortune on hunters’ families or even the village.”
As China has paid more attention to environmental protection in recent decades, instituting bans on hunting guns and commercial logging, many mountainous areas have developed policies to encourage local residents to help with wildlife protection.
Cai became a forest ranger in 1998 and joined the gibbon research team in 2011.
“Unprovoked animals rarely attack human beings,” he said. “As we enjoy a more prosperous life by protecting the mountains and the animals, we should live with them in harmony.”
Jiang Xuelong, a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said although commercial logging has been banned across China since 2017, Gaoligong’s gibbons are still threatened by small-scale habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation.
“Only with a deeper understanding of the species can we draw up a more comprehensive protection plan for them and save this endangered species from extinction. As Cai always says, we have a common goal: saving the Skywalkers for future generations.”