Smart system enhances protection of wildlife

With just a few clicks, an engineer switched the live feed on a big screen from a view of about a dozen black-necked cranes foraging in alpine meadows in Nagqu in the Xizang autonomous region, to a glimpse of the majestic, glistening glaciers of Mount Kulha Dardong on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

These real-time scenes of unique wildlife and ecosystems are now broadcast continuously from 14 monitoring stations scattered across roughly a quarter of Sanjiangyuan National Park and two neighboring nature reserves in Qinghai province and Xizang.

Wang Mingqing, Party secretary of Nagqu's forestry and grassland bureau, said that the 14 monitoring facilities are part of a smart platform that integrates satellites, drones and ground surveillance to track wildlife such as Tibetan antelopes, wild yaks and white-lipped deer, and to monitor glaciers, wetlands and other critical ecosystems.