Volunteers to protect tigers

World Wide Fund for Nature recruits animal lovers to stop poaching

Volunteer conservationists have organized a series of mountain patrols to prevent poachers from targeting wild Siberian tigers in Northeast China and make more people aware of the animal's plight.

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The three-day project, organized by the China branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature, attracted people from across the country, including Shanghai and Fujian province.

"We wanted the volunteers to learn more about the tigers through these activities and to make sure more people know about the importance of conserving wildlife and protecting the environment," said Liu Yi, who is with the fund's China tiger program.

The environmental group is a driving force behind the work being done to research and protect Siberian tigers in the wild. It has opened a branch dedicated to the pursuit of that mission in Changchun, capital of Jilin province.

"I'd only seen tigers in newspapers or the zoo in the past," said Zuo Jian, who traveled from Sichuan province, more than 3,000 kilometers away, to work with the group. "This exercise was a very valuable chance to follow their steps and enable me to have a better understanding of the big cat. Taking care of tigers is a way to protect the environment and ourselves."

The volunteers were divided into three teams and assigned to patrol Lanjia forest in Jilin, and Nuanquanhe and Dongfanghong forests in Heilongjiang province, which are the main habitats of the Siberian tiger in China.