China launches environmental monitoring system for Siberian tigers, Amur leopards

BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- China Thursday launched a monitoring system to track and manage the natural habitat of the endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards living in the country's northeastern regions.

More than 100 monitoring devices have been installed in Hunchun, Jilin Province, covering a 500-square-km area where the two species are frequently seen, which will be part of the future Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park.

The monitoring system will collect real-time data on natural resources such as water, soil, and air, and send it to a monitoring and research center in Beijing which facilitates the management of the area, said Ge Jianping from Beijing Normal University, who is in charge of the center.

Siberian tigers and Amur leopards, which as both among the world's most endangered species, live mostly in northeast China and Russia's far east. At least 27 wild Siberian tigers and 42 Amur leopards are believed to live in China.

To better protect the two species, Chinese authorities decided to build a 1.46-million-hectare national park in country's northeastern region. About 71 percent of the area is in Jilin and the rest in the adjacent Heilongjiang Province.

Construction of the park is scheduled to be complete in 2020, and the monitoring system will cover the entire national park by then, according to Ge. Enditem