Park rangers brave hardship to fight off poachers

Songtsen Langbo, a member of the Hol Xil National Nature Reserve patrol team, knows all there is to know about the unforgiving weather on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau - yet a patrol last month still nearly cost him his life.

For 11 days, he and five colleagues found themselves trapped by mud and snow in the 60,000-square-km reserve in Northwest China's Qinghai province.

"We were on our way back from a 25-day patrol, and our jeeps got stuck in the mud," said Langbo, who has led the nature reserve's fourth patrol group since May.