The day starts early for Shi Xiaogang, a wildlife ranger(护林员) at the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Southwest China's Sichuan province. He monitors the population of giant pandas and conducts long-range patrols(巡逻) in some of the most extreme environments, is a challenging and, often, dangerous job.
(cover) about 200, 000 hectares, Wolong National Nature Reserve is home to one of the largest remaining giant panda populations in China. Thanks to the rangers' like Shi's efforts, number of wild giant pandas in the reserve has increased from 104, in 2015, to 149 today. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (announce) that the giant panda's status had been changed from "endangered "to" vulnerable" on its Red List of Threatened Species.
As well as" the home of giant pandas", the reserve is (wide) known as a" bio-gene bank". It features a great number of threatened species of plants and animals, including other famous (creature), such as the red panda, snow leopard and clouded leopard among the 121 species of mammals(哺乳动物) (record) . There are also 392 bird species.
To mark the rangers' hard work and contribution to wildlife (protect) in the reserve, last year, 20 rangers (recognize) with special commendations(表扬) at an online award ceremony for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas' International Ranger Awards.
The commission speaks highly of their work, saying that they help stop biodiversity loss and protect the important ecosystems that serve natural solutions to climate change and other global challenges.
