Bird protector takes wing to continue family tradition

A young woman is the third generation to devote her life to the protection of red-crowned cranes, as Tian Xuefei and Zhou Huiying report from Harbin.

Every day, Xu Zhuo, 25, opens her diary and writes down the details of her daily work－feeding, breeding, inoculating and curing red-crowned cranes. She is following in the footsteps of her grandfather, father and aunt in a story that combines dedication and tragedy.

In 2016, when Xu graduated from Northeast Forestry University in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, she declined the offer of postgraduate study and instead became a researcher into the breeding and protection of red-crowned cranes at the Zhalong Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang.

Established in 1979, the reserve, located in the western part of Heilongjiang, is a well-preserved primitive wetland.

Covering 2,100 square kilometers, the wetland lies on a major migratory route for birds from the Arctic to Southeast Asia, and is stopover point and nesting area for a large number of bird species including storks, swans, herons and grebes.

In 1992, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands listed the reserve, which is home to about 400 wild red-crowned cranes, as an International Important Wetland Protectorate.