A 12-year-old middle school student from southwest China’s Chongqing City spent her last summer vacation protecting wild animals at a conservation area in Masai Mara, Kenya. Her unique experience shocked her teachers and classmates when she shared this at a recent charity event in the school.

Zhuoyang Ling’er’s father has an African name—Simba, which means “lion”. In fact, he is the first full-time worker from China to carry out protection work of wild animals in Africa. He is also a founder of Mara Wild Animals Conservation Foundation and lives in the wild in Africa throughout the year.

As her father often told her stories about wild animals in her childhood, the girl developed an interest in all kinds of animals. Her father took her to travel around Africa for the first time when she was 4 years old, and to commemorate(纪念) her first trip, he wrote a book titled Little Simba Travels to Africa.

She visited Africa for the second time at the age of 8. After coming back to school, she started publicizing(宣传) the idea of protecting wild animals among her classmates and other students.

During the last summer holiday, the girl traveled to Africa again. “I am not a traveler this time. I spent nearly two months on the research and protection of wild animals there,” she said. “Every day the birdsong wakes me up. Then I follow my father to patrol the reserve area(保护区) to check if some animals are injured. If everything is as it should be, we start enjoying our breakfast,” the girl wrote in her diary.