BEIJING: On a cool summer night, Jiang Yao, a senior student at Nanjing Agricultural University in Jiangsu province, finished his day as an intern at Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo.
As he walked through the zoo alone, a group of fireflies flew around him. Standing amid their glow, Jiang knew immediately that this was where he belonged.
“As one particular firefly circled around me, everything seemed to be in perfect harmony. At that moment in 2019, I decided to work at the zoo,” said Jiang, now 25. After graduating from the university with a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology in 2020, Jiang started work as a keeper at the forest zoo, which is home to more than 3,000 animals from 260 species. Born and raised in a rural area of Jiangsu, he has loved animals and watched documentaries about them since childhood. During his job interview at the zoo, when Jiang was asked if he had any experience in saving animals, he said the first one he helped rescue was a small turtle his father found in a river near his village.
“I was just a little boy when I saw my father take the turtle home, where he offered it to me as a pet. I immediately turned the offer down, telling him that a turtle is not a pet and I didn’t want to treat it like a toy. My father was very supportive of me, and we returned to the river to release the creature. I was so happy for the turtle,” Jiang said.
Jiang formed the idea of becoming a zoo keeper when he was a student. During his fieldwork on Huangshan Mountain, Anhui province, he once met a graduate student who researched short-tailed macaques. Jiang was highly impressed by the knowledge of these creatures that the student shared with him. “The student named each macaque and could tell the differences between them, just like parents spotting differences between twins. His passion for animals touched me deeply, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” Jiang said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
