Wild moments

Bao started photographing wildlife nine years ago, when he guided some nature-photographer friends. They saw many animals. He thought about making an album of the nature in his hometown.

"I encountered many wild creatures as a kid," he says.

"I hope to leave a book with photos of my hometown's wildlife so that younger generations can learn what we have."

The Qilian Mountains are an important area for wildlife, including snow leopards, black-necked cranes and white-lipped deer. The Tibetan fox and the Himalayan marmot are unique to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The foxes breed from March to July. The fox Bao shot was raising three cubs. She'd hunt every morning, especially for plateau pikas.

"There are lots of pikas, but they're hard to catch. If a Tibetan fox gets a Himalayan marmot, she can feed her young for two days," Bao says.

Bao knows the foxes' habits. The year he snapped the photo of the mother was his second year monitoring her. He'd found her den a year before and shot a video of her stalking a marmot.

The day he took the award-winning photo, he stayed a kilometer away from a marmot's burrow. He saw the fox slink downhill near the rodent's hole. He chose his angle and waited.

Bao says that Himalayan marmots are wary. The one in his photo had actually seen the fox and called out to warn others. But more than an hour later, it seemed to forget about the predator and re-emerged from its burrow to find food.

"The Tibetan fox saw her opportunity and pounced. She suddenly attacked when she was 5 meters from the marmot and injured it," Bao recalls.

"Himalayan marmots are social animals. So, two other marmots saw their companion was in danger and came to repel the fox, which ran between the three rodents, looking for a chance to attack the injured marmot.