An official meeting was held with tourists at the Red Snow Panthers “Ling Xiaoqing” at the Sing Ning Wildlife Park in Qinghai. After being taken care of by the Qinghai Wildlife Rescue and Recreation Centre (Sining Wildlife Park) for serious injuries, the rehabilitation route of Ling Xiaoqiao has been pursued by netizens and has raised awareness of the protection of snow leopards.
The snow leopards are the flagship animals of the Tibetan plateau and protect wildlife at the national level. The Sanjiang region of Qinghai province, which maintains a relatively full area of snow leopard habitat, is one of the most concentrated and densely populated areas. The protection of snow leopards is of great importance to the Sanjiang District Prosecutor ' s Office.
In 2024, in the course of conducting a public-interest trial to promote environmental litigation, the Prosecutor ' s Office of the Sanjiang region opened a civil-interest suit against Peng Choi, a certain person, for criminal offences against precious, endangered wildlife.
In March 2024, Jieyi, a herder in Deutsche County (who later died as a result of illness), placed barbed wire on his home pasture to hunt for rock sheep. At the end of March of the same year, his son, Peng Hoi, while grazing herbs, found a snow leopard in the head with a barbed wire and suffocated. He took the body of the leopard home because of the lack of electricity in his home, and transported it to his family's home in the refrigerator, where he had been placed by his relatives, where he had negotiated a sale. Soon, Peng was captured by the public security authorities.
In June 2024, the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Sanjiang region opened an investigation into the case and issued a public notice in connection with the criminal incidental civil service action.
“When I recall the cold and stiff bodies of the leopards, they were moved, photographed and displayed, I felt sore.” The Prosecutor of the Sanjiang region said, “The lovely and mysterious `Snow Mountain Elf', who is supposed to play an important ecological balancing role, has been sacrificed by the illegal elements for their greed and for their own good.”
What is the assessment of the extent to which precious endangered wildlife resources and the corresponding ecological damage are caused by the illegal hunting of snow leopards? This is the greatest difficulty in handling this case. In response, the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Sanjiang region has organized a number of fact-finding sessions on the protection of the ecological resources of snow leopards, the identification of permanent damage to the ecological functioning of the population, the valuation of ecological damage, and the submission of applications for public benefit, which must be supported by expert “outsides”. As a result, the Institute commissioned a specialized appraisal by the North-West Highlands Institute of Biological Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which resulted in a report on the assessment of the value of ecological damage to snow leopards in Deutsche County. The ecological value of hunting and killing a snow leopard was assessed at over $200,000.
On the basis of the assessment report, in August 2024, the Sanjiang Regional Prosecutor ' s Office filed a complaint with the Sining Railway Transport Court for crimes against precious and endangered wildlife, and simultaneously initiated a criminal incidental civil service action. In November of the same year, the Court publicly sentenced Peng to a term of imprisonment of three years, a suspended sentence of four years and a fine of $10,000 for crimes against precious, endangered wildlife; a sentence of two years and six months, a suspended sentence of three years and a fine of $10,000. At the same time, Peng has been ordered to co-indemnify the environmental damage caused by the violation totalling more than 200,000 yuan, for a fee of 80,000 yuan, and to apologize publicly to the community.
In June this year, the case was selected as a model case for the promotion of green, low-carbon and high-quality development in the Qinghai Sea, published jointly by the Qinghai Provincial Prosecutor's Office and the Provincial Department of Eco-Environment.
“The protection of snow leopards and their habitats has been the focus of our attention. Since its establishment, the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Sanjiang region has made the protection of the ecological environment and biodiversity an important area of responsibility. It has carried out high-quality and efficient handling of criminal cases in the field of environmental and resource protection, and has carried out a thorough and far-reaching process of conducting public-interest litigation on the ecological environment, with a view to ensuring that important political responsibilities for ecological protection are met.” The Attorney-General of the Prosecutor's Office of the Sanjiang region has stated that “the next step is to continue to strengthen the inspection of the ecological environment, perform its prosecutorial functions with high quality and efficiency, and contribute prosecutorial wisdom and strength to the sustainable conservation and sustainable use of the ecological resources of the Tibetan plateau”.