Engineering graduate's unlikely career path leads to primate protection

As dawn breaks at around 5:30 in Shennongjia, Hubei province, Li Shuhang, dressed in a blue outdoor jacket and carrying a large backpack, nimbly scampers into the forest. He has to locate his monkey troop before it wakes up; otherwise, it becomes much more difficult to find the primates once they start moving.

These particular primates, Shennongjia golden snub-nosed monkeys, are the rarest subspecies of a first-class nationally protected species. A total of 105 individuals — selected as the focal study group for long-term behavioral and ecological monitoring in 2005, when their numbers were only around 40 — are the subjects of the 29-year-old caretaker's work.