Wanderings in the wild, wild west

The Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in Qinghai province is the country's most biologically diverse area. It's home to many species, including the Tibetan antelope. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Officers give the animals vast spaces to minimize human impact. So they appear like distant figurines to the people. And vice versa, one would imagine.

The waiting vehicles of this otherwise largely uninhabited swath of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau snake as far as the eye can see, engines grumbling.

Officers motion once the last straggler teeters over the pavement.

Vehicles growl forward.

I've seen these endangered creatures regularly during my four visits to Hoh Xil over the past six years.

But I'd never seen such a spectacle until this summer.