In-depth study

In the early 2000s, Ge led a team of BNU researchers into the depths of Jilin's virgin forests. They studied grainy images of the tigers that had been captured by a network of infrared cameras, gave each animal a specific identity and traced their whereabouts.

"Each tiger and leopard has unique markings, just like our fingerprints," said Ge, who holds a doctorate in ecology from Northeast Forestry University in Harbin in Heilongjiang, a province that also provides a habitat for the big cats.

Living in the forest for long periods, the researchers found that going hungry was a daily challenge, while temperatures in Northeast China can easily drop below-30 C in winter. One of Ge's colleagues even ran into a black bear, which he scared away by lighting a firecracker.

The efforts eventually paid off, though. On a baking summer day in 2007, a wild Amur tiger appeared on the screen, and a leopard made a debut three years later.

By 2015, Ge and his team had gathered enough data to conclude in exact numbers that there were 27 Amur tigers and 42 leopards in the area, and possibly in all of China.

Top-level intervention

To clear the way for the visitors to settle down in China, Ge submitted his findings to the central authorities via a lengthy report, advising that the cats' conservation be handled as a matter of strategic importance.

The number of apex predators such as Amur tigers is widely used as a measure of "ecological healthiness", and their absence would result in excessive populations of deer, boar and many other herbivores, eventually leading to deforestation.

"Without these cats, the ecosystem would not be complete," Ge said.

The report made it all the way to the desk of President Xi Jinping, who had just started his signature ecological civilization campaign, which prizes the harmonious coexistence of nature and humanity.

Xi instructed that the tiger's preservation, along with that of other endangered plant and animal species, be included in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), a set of wide-ranging goals to be achieved every five years.

Ge said, "It is safe to say that our efforts led to a sweeping conservation campaign for pandas, Amur tigers and leopards, Asian elephants, and so on and so forth."

The cats' elevated status resulted in the cancellation of a highway under construction and the rerouting of a railway in Jilin so animal migration paths were not disrupted.

A series of meetings was also convened between top officials and conservation specialists. After lengthy deliberations, they agreed in late 2016 to designate an area spanning 14,100 square kilometers in Jilin and neighboring Heilongjiang as a trial national facility — the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park.

The site, featuring a mix of needle-leaved and broad-leaved plants, also provides a home for black bears, sable and red deer.

An introduction posted on the park's website describes the place as one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. "The site was chosen to include as much of the tigers' and leopards' major habitats, migration routes and potential destinations," it said, adding that the planners tried to avoid residential areas and they attempted to keep the ecosystem as complete and natural as possible.