Inaugural Meeting

The China Wild Cat Conservation project when off to a flying start, with our opening meeting and general get together in Beijing. We were very pleased to be able to attract some of the biggest names in conservation within China (for example, Prof. Ma Jianzhang has near God-status and getting support of the Secretary General was no mean feat either). With this level of support for our work we have every confidence that our work will produce good things. The family photo from the meeting is below.

All the best,
Phil.

Hello and Welcome.

Many thanks for dropping in on this blog, the purpose of which is to record the activities and interests of a project to develop the conservation of wild cats throughout China. We are based at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at University of Oxford and The Wildlife Institute at Beijing Forestry University and supported by the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative and the State Forestry Administration of China.

We have been working on snow leopard conservation in China, primarily in Xinjiang and Sichuan, and following the success of these activities, the Chinese authorities requested that we develop a network for the conservation of all wild cat species (probably 13 species) across the country. These include critically endangered species and sub-species, such as Siberian tiger, South China tiger, snow leopard and Chinese desert cat, about which there is often precious little information. To achieve this, we will train local wildlife teams working within protected areas to assess and monitor wild cat populations. We will also develop a network that consolidates the existing work on cats in China and provides a route for information to be used by conservation policy makers and practitioners alike.

With best wishes to one and all,
Phil