A Tibetan antelope runs briskly after a four-wheel drive vehicle towards the three sheds that serve as a wildlife preservation center in the Hoh Xil Natural Reserve 4,600 meters above sea level.

It apparently recognizes the car and its driver Gama - many Tibetans have no surnames - a worker at the center.

Gama became the animal's means of survival in June 2006, when it was found alone in the wild, barely a week old and with an injured leg. He took it to the center, tended its wounds and kept it at the nature reserve alongside other Tibetan antelopes, stocky wild horses and donkeys.