CHANGCHUN -- The forestry department in Northeast China's Jilin province said rangers have braved freezing temperatures during a winter patrol of snow-capped mountains and forests to protect and study wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards.The department said Sunday that the rangers have monitored 27 wild Siberian tigers and 42 Amur leopards during the patrol of 4,050 square km of forest areas, which includes six reserves for the endangered species.More than 3,000 individual trips have been recorded as part of the patrol since November, during which rangers removed 2,033 items of poaching equipment, including traps and nets, and cleared poisonous bait, which all posed harm to the wild predators.Ranger Chu Xingwen said the patrols were all made on foot. They recorded video and collected the animals' foot prints as well as blood, hair, and faeces samples.The forestry department said during winter, anti-poaching rangers checked 860 vehicles and 80 shops, and 12 wild animal breeding farms were shut down. More than 10,000 brochures were distributed to improve public awareness of the protection of the endangered species.The launch of two organizations -- the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park Administration and the park's natural resources and assets management bureau -- in August last year has greatly beefed up the protection efforts.The organizations will undertake the construction of the park which is scheduled to be completed in 2020. The national park will cover more than 1.46 million hectares. About 71 percent of the area is in Jilin and the rest in the adjacent Heilongjiang Province. hospital wristbandcustom wristbands no minimumblack rubber wristbands24hr wristband
WANG WENJIN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE More than 80 people with the surname Zhang traveled from Taiwan to Xiamen, Fujian, in August to discover their roots. People are studying their family trees and age-old stories in the hope of reconnecting with long-lost relatives. Zhang Yi reports from Xiamen, Fujian. On June 9, Huang Ching-hsiung woke at about 3 am in his hotel bed in Xiamen, Fujian province. He was too excited to sleep. At daybreak, he was one of a group of 11 members of his family that set out to visit Pujin, a village two hours from downtown Xiamen by road. The settlement has the same name as Huang's home village in Lugang town, Changhua, Taiwan, and most of the residents are named Huang. The Huangs on Taiwan are direct descendents of settlers who arrived on the island centuries ago. Several batches of Fujian residents moved to Taiwan during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in the hope of making their fortunes, and those who were members of the same family banded together as they fought to make new lives. They named the places they settled after their hometowns and retained the customs they had brought from the mainland. Roughly 80 percent of Taiwan residents share blood ties with people from Fujian. About 110 settlements on either side of the Taiwan Straits that share the same village and family names have established official exchange programs, according to the Fujian-Taiwan Compatriots' Association. In the 1980s, the descendants of those early settlers started visiting the mainland to discover their roots, inspired by family histories passed down through generations. Place your feet on the land our ancestors came from, Huang's father told him, shortly before he died 12 years ago.
