Read part 1 of this story here.

The excited cry of a park ranger pierces the stillness of a bamboo forest high in the Min Mountains. Zhan Xiangjiang, an ecologist who I'm hanging out with for the day, bounds through waist-deep snowdrifts to investigate. Catching up with the ranger, he kneels down and points at a small, round object that, at first glance, looks like a greenish yam. "Smell this!" he says to me.

The not-unpleasant odor of fresh bamboo wafts up. Along with other clues--chewed bamboo stalks, paw prints, and urine-marked trees--the fresh scat is the latest evidence that Zhan's monitoring team is hot on the heels of a giant panda.

On a single-lane dirt road wending between misty crags deep in Sichuan Province, traffic has slowed to a crawl. Hundreds of dump trucks and steamrollers are expanding the only road to Wolong Nature Reserve into a modern freeway. Conservation biologist George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City was the first Westerner to study giant pandas in China when he came to Wolong, about 500 kilometers southwest of Wanglang, in 1980.

Now, more than 100,000 tourists every year flock to Wolong, the country's most famous panda reserve, to see its 120 captive-bred pandas, the largest such population in the world.

On a March afternoon, there are so many pandas in the "kindergarten pen" here that it's hard to keep track of their antics. One is attempting a handstand while three others are playing king of the hill. These carefree cubs, a record 19 from Wolong's breeding season, are part of the dramatic comeback for a symbol of conservation: the giant panda.

On a nondescript street near downtown Harbin, the Double Mountain Local Products Wholesale Center offers the usual array of kitsch items stripped from the wilderness: deer antlers, pelts and dried starfish. A request for tiger wine, a traditional brew of corpse-steeped cheap liquor with dozens of reputed medical benefits, raises a stern eyebrow from an employee who informs me that as such concoctions are illegal, they are not available at the store.

But at the mention of American money, a store manager intervenes - $100 would buy two bottles, and true to the employee's words they are not at the store; they will be delivered via courier. Doubts about the brew's authenticity are shooed away.

The manager is certain the bottles are the genuine article because, she says, "they came from over at that tiger park". She is referring to the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center on the outskirts of the city. By most accounts, that tiger farm is an enviable success. Started in 1986 with 8 Siberian tigers, it is now home to 800 of the big cats. Compare that with the estimated 150 Siberian tigers in US zoos. The largest tiger-breeding facility in the world, Hengdaohezi - like its cousin down south at the Wolong Panda Reserve - has learned the art of churning out cubs, 100 this year alone.

A friend of mine, Li Quan, has been raising tigers in Africa. The first thing you should know is that tigers are not found in Africa. The second thing you should know is that she gave up a cushy career in the fashion industry to become a cat conservationist. Both points seem strange. But what's most bizarre is that her tigers are Chinese. In fact, they're one of the rarest animals in the world. There's only 67 South China tigers remaining.

Well, make that 68. Over the weekend, one of her four adult tigers gave birth to a 1.2 kilogram fuzzy ball of a cub. This cub will be sent, along with any others that are born soon, to China, where they will be released into nature reserves. These reserves will be the first of their kind for tiger conservation - and a model of sustainable eco-tourism. You would be able to check out the tigers in their natural habitat.

Of course, you could do that even now. Her tigers are being raised in South Africa's Free State. They spend their days roaming the safari (kind of, there's a big fence around them). They hunt antelopes when they're hungry. And entertain guests who come to check out what is sure the weirdest animal to be found in Africa: a Chinese tiger.

Congrats Li Quan.