Cover Story: Saving the Lonely Skywalkers

It was in 1997 when Li Jiahong, a 63-year-old wildlife protection expert, first heard the shrill calls of the Skywalker hoolock gibbon, one of the most endangered primates in the world.

Bursting from the canopies of the dense forest in the Gaoligong Mountains in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, the high-pitched and rhythmic sound “was like rolling down the hill, remote but every clear,” said Li, who then worked at the Longyang preservation office of the Gaoligong Mountains National Nature Reserve.