Xi'an Qinling Wildlife Park

The guide to Xi'an Qinling Wildlife Park opens in May 1981, when a researcher named Liu Yinzeng climbed into a Qinling valley expecting to find nothing and instead spotted seven birds in a single pine tree: crested ibises, a species Japan and the rest of the world had all but given up on. It follows the ban on hunting, logging and pesticides that followed within days across that valley, and introduces the other three animals locals call the Four Treasures of the Qinling, alongside the ibis, all found here because these mountains sit exactly where China's cold north meets its warm south. Look closely at the ibis pens for a bird whose whole story once came down to one man looking up at the right tree.