Painter-turned protector

Li said that when he was about 18, shortly after graduating from the high school affiliated to Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, he gave up higher education at the academy and founded the Black Leopard Wildlife Conservation Station.

The 39-year-old, born and raised in a village by the South Third Ring Road in Beijing until he was in grade six, said life in the village had a major influence on the career he chose.

"In the village there were greenhouses, crop fields and large fields of canola flowers. My pastimes were climbing trees, watching how bird eggs hatched, how little birds grew, and how tadpoles turned into frogs."

The station fared poorly in its first years, and in 2005 only three workers were left, including Li. In the same year he opened a gallery and started funding the station's work by selling paintings.

The team, which lacked professional know-how and wildlife protection skills, trained with the Wildlife Conservation Society from 2007 to 2013 and took part in several of the society's projects in China, Li said.

In 2014 the station joined the China Wildlife Conservation Association's service to protect wild birds and became a partner of the World Wide Fund for Nature, Li said. It now has 12 members and more than 2,000 volunteers.