Filming Chiru on the Highest Plateau on Earth

Over the past couple of years, videos of wolves on the Qinghai-Tibet road have appeared occasionally on social media. These canny wolves wait for food from truck drivers and have grabbed the attention of many online viewers. A few weeks before the crew departed for Hoh Xil, we joked with one another: what if we saw these famous “beggar wolves”? Would we film them or focus on the chiru mating? We didn’t give it a great deal of thought – we knew very little about the wolves and, besides, we were told it was extremely rare to see them in winter.

On a dusty morning in mid-December, we left the city of Golmud for Hoh Xil. The crew comprised myself, cinematographer Jacky Poon and camera assistant Tong Xu. Our drivers were experienced rangers who’ve patrolled this uninhabited highland for over two decades. The journey was about six hours, the elevation increasing to 4,600m. If any of us felt sick, all we could do was turn our cars around and head back to the city.

One hour into the trip, the landscape changed to natural dry steppe and desert. After crossing the mighty Kunlun mountain pass, we saw some cars. Buddhist monks were throwing what looked like food to the side of the road. We looked to the right and a lone wolf was looking up, moving towards the food. Shortly after the monks left, the wolf walked away under the yellow sky.

We had to wonder why the wolves chose to beg. Maybe one of them started doing this out of curiosity and then found out there was not much harm done to themselves? We did not have much time to think before a massive sandstorm swallowed the entire road. We could barely see anything, and the whole world around us became a post-apocalyptic blur.

Despite the terrible weather, we made it to the motel. The lack of oxygen at this altitude pressed upon our chests. In the first two days, we were greeted by headaches, but we tried to scout the region and make a filming plan. Based on past experience, we set up a hide near a frozen lake. We thought the lake would attract animals since water is a scarce resource in winter. A few days passed and we barely saw any chiru. After touring the area, we noticed there was ice hidden in crevices all around. The lake wasn’t as appealing as we had thought.

Since the lake plan had failed, we decided to adopt more of a guerrilla filmmaking approach, looking for chiru near the main roads. The results were OK in terms of medium or close-up shots, because the chiru herds next to the roads seemed more accustomed to humans. However, we needed to film the males fighting or we didn’t have a sequence. We started to wonder if we had missed the mating season entirely.

By week three, the rangers proposed a new plan – visiting a patch of land next to the river where many chiru sometimes congregated. As we approached, we had to stay low on the bed of the pickup truck to minimise our influence on the animals. But this was easier said than done. The shakiness, the dust and the wind at -30°C were real struggles. Thanks to Jacky and Tong, we found a speed the chiru were comfortable with.

Then one morning, while searching for chiru, we saw a lone wolf walking in the distance. We didn’t think too much of it, but decided to see where it was heading.

 

Thanks to this whim, we made a surprising finding. Near noon time, the wolf started running, getting closer and closer to a herd of chiru. Clearly, he had decided to hunt, yet he was totally alone. We were very confused as to what this single wolf wanted to do. The chiru could easily outrun him for sure.

We followed carefully from a distance, constantly checking from our binoculars. It turned out the lone wolf was quite determined in chasing the chiru herd. He was outpaced again and again but he did not give up. His pace was persistent and steady. Fifteen minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour... It was hard to believe the resilience. This did not match what the rangers told us. Did this wolf believe he could catch the best runners on the plateau?

This strange hunt only got stranger. After prolonged chasing, the chiru herd got more and more disorganised. They seemed to be losing their sense of direction, despite having the capability to run faster. Suddenly, one female ran in the wrong direction and the wolf made no mistake. He locked in on this female and became even quicker. His strength and stamina shocked us to the core. The chiru was put to the ground. After a few final twitches, there was no more movement. We’d seen the whole thing unfold through binoculars – too far away to film.

This wolf, after more than an hour's hard work, had managed to hunt down a healthy, fully capable chiru. There were no words to express our excitement. We had discovered that the wolves, or at least some of them, hunted alone in winter, unlike their pack strategies in summer. And they targeted healthy chiru, not just the old and wounded. The game was about stamina and determination. So, we switched our goals for the shoot. In addition to telling the chiru’s story, we dared to hope we could also capture a wolf hunt.

We tried to spot lone wolves and a few days later were rewarded: we found another individual and he didn’t seem to mind us following him in our car. It was almost as if he wanted to show us something. We could feel our hearts pounding. We didn’t know how it would play out.

Then, suddenly, the wolf was after a small herd. Neither side seemed to be trying their best to run. After changing directions a couple of times, the chiru left the wolf behind. Nearby chiru herds, upon seeing the stampede, also started running. The wolf changed his target. The next herd also outran the wolf easily. Then the wolf shifted his game again. It seemed absurd but now we believed he had a plan.

As they ran farther and farther away, the sun was getting closer to the ground. We knew we only had a short time left for filming. The chase was still going. A small gully in front of us stopped us temporarily and we realised we would have to use our drone to follow the action – we’d never be able to keep up using a traditional camera. However, since we hadn’t originally planned on filming a wolf hunt, we hadn’t brought many drone batteries on the trip – and in the thin air on the plateau, drone batteries drain really fast.

Chasing a moving target with the drone while following in the car was not easy. The drone was getting very distant and the image went blurry. Jacky had to rely on his judgement as to whether the animals turned left or right. All of a sudden, more drama unfolded – one chiru, probably panicked, became separated from the herd. The wolf saw this and immediately took action; he had managed to save enough strength for a final strike. The dust from the chiru herd created a golden fog in the setting sun. Just when the strike was about to happen, the drone started beeping a low-battery warning. Combined with the poor signal, it was at a real risk of crashing. Jacky continued to film, using the best of his instincts. Amazingly, the strike happened and the lone wolf made his kill. The sun was just below the horizon and seconds later, the drone lost contact completely. We could only hope it had landed automatically.

Using GPS data, we started looking for the drone. Then, we saw with our own eyes the faint figure of the wolf. We approached to a distance that the wolf was comfortable with and took some shots with our long-lens camera.

Later, we managed to find the drone and it was intact – when contact was lost, it had landed itself. When we checked the playback, we were too excited to speak – Jacky had managed to capture the whole thing. The light was epic. We got the hunt! Even the rangers were surprised by what we had filmed.

This harsh plateau is home to so many natural wonders and we don’t know how many more mysteries there are to be found there. All we can hope is that the fragile ecosystem remains healthy for years to come.

 

Featured image © BBC Studios NHU