AN image of a panda beckons as soon as one arrives at the airport in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China. Walk a few inches, and there’s a panda statue. Ride a taxi, and it has a panda sticker on it. Pandas, pandas, pandas. Why are they everywhere?
The answer: Chengdu is home to Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, more popularly known as the Chengdu Panda Base, the only panda-breeding center in China. So those panda characters all over the place sort of announce the presence of their live counterparts in this part of China.
It is a rare opportunity to see China’s national treasure in flesh, as this endangered species—only 1,000 exist in the world today—can only be seen in China and a few other countries. In China they are found in Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu provinces. So this reporter felt very excited when the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines announced that our group of visiting media delegates would have the privilege to see a number of live pandas.
Cuddly creatures
THE big Chengdu Panda Base structure welcomes its guests. Inside the pandas’ playground, throngs of local and foreign visitors elbow each other as they go gaga over the adorable creatures. A never-ending cacophony of camera shutter clicks fill the air, with everyone wanting to have a shot of every move of the cuddly animals.
One could say every foreign tourist in Chengdu visits the area to have the rare experience of seeing a giant panda in flesh, with the panda base having over 1 million visitors from around the world each year.
This reporter had one of the happiest days in her life when she saw the pandas on the playground.
One giant panda, Cheng Dong, has a larger built than the other pandas. Lying face-down, he is sulky, which made it hard for tourists to steal a snapshot.
Everyone had the urge to climb the stairs just to see Qiu Bang, who, at that time, was busy munching on his favorite bamboo shoots. The visitors and this reporter were in a helter-skelter just to have a closer view of this adorable animal.
Two younger pandas, assumingly the size of a pot-bellied pig, made everyone hoot and hanker for more of their show.
One of the last sets of giant pandas made everyone literally go gaga. Their playground has the most number of visitors, as everyone who has a camera never had a second thought of jostling through the crowd to capture a perfect angle of the picture-postcard material. One giant panda steals the show by climbing one of the bamboos in front of the visitors, while others were just nestled on their own nooks like sinful sloths.
Aside from the bigger giant pandas on the playground, tourists also had a chance to see cute baby pandas in the incubator area. Everyone had to patiently fall in line to witness how a baby panda looked like. The cubs, which looked as vulnerable as just about everybody the day they were born, had to be placed in the incubator because they are being closely monitored by a camera to document their movements for research.
Did you know that a baby panda has an IQ of a 3- to 4-year-old child. And if it is really brilliant, its IQ is equivalent to a 6- to 7-year-old child. This most-photographed endangered animal reaches maturity at 4 to 7 years old.
Eat, sleep, play
A NORMAL day of a giant panda starts at 8 a.m., when the personnel clean and maintain their “bedrooms,” Wang Ling of the public relations office of the Chengdu Panda Base told the BusinessMirror.
Their activities? They just eat, sleep and play all day.
Although pandas are carnivorous, nowadays, 99 percent of them eat bamboo. They eat around 30 kilograms to 40 kg of bamboo a day and can only digest protein and sugar, the posters at the Panda Base Museum say. Also, their stool is fibrous—which is processed into bamboo papers and used for handicrafts.
Each panda is identified not by its characteristics, but through its own keeper, Ling said. The keepers can distinguish one panda from another.
Pandas, no matter where they were born or grew up, are considered Chinese. Just like Mei Lan, a giant panda which was born in California, US, on September 6, 2006, and was transferred to the center at the age of three. Mei Lan is the global ambassador of World Wide Fund for Nature Earth Hour. It was mistakenly identified as female, until it was discovered that Mei Lan was a male, when it reached Chengdu Panda Base.
What’s in a name?
THE “giant” panda’s name is derived from the physical description of the animal. Originally, it was called “bear cat” by Westerners but the Chinese call it as “cat bear.” So, in order to avoid confusion, the word “giant” is used to differentiate it from the red bear, Lin said.
Information standees around the area say a red panda (Ailurus fulgens) has reddish-brown fur, long tail and is larger than a domestic cat. A giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) has black patches around the eyes, ears and other parts of the body with white fur in general. Adult pandas stand an average of 120 to 180 centimeters in height and 80 to 150 kg in weight, while newly born pandas weigh 50 to 200 grams, with a body length from 10 to 14 cm.
The research base
THE Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is a nonprofit organization engaged in wildlife research, captive breeding, conservation education and education tourism. Founded in 1987, the center is originally a habitat for peacocks, until its leaders decided to choose six giant pandas rescued from the wild for artificial rearing.
The center is currently handling 70 adults and nine newborns.
According to its web site, the research team is composed of doctoral and masters degree holders with specializations in genetics, animal genetics, breeding and reproduction, veterinary medicine and ecology.
It has won numerous awards for developing giant panda DNA fingerprinting probes; invention of DNA-extraction methods; genome-wide DNA from pandas’ excrement and specimen; artificial-insemination technology, etc.
It is also the first research institution to have synthesized giant panda fingerprinting probe.
Inside the base, the preservation of nature is instantly noticed, as well.
The cold breeze greets guests as they walk along the luscious bamboo trees before reaching the animals’ den. The Chengdu Panda Base’s pamphlet says there are around 400 kinds of trees in the area: gingko, chinars, magnolia and willows, to name a few.
Panda breeding center
THE Chengdu Panda Base, according to its web site, has developed as the world’s largest artificial breeding population of captive giant pandas. It has committed a long-term program that will rescue and save any sick wild giant pandas. It had a total of 116 panda births; 172 newborn giant pandas were generated from the six sick and starving giant pandas rescued in the 1980s. The Chengdu Panda Base researchers and scientists classified ways for giant panda breeding through natural mating and artificial insemination using granules and frozen tubules of sperm cells.
They discovered that anesthesia gave immense stress to giant pandas, delaying their ovulation.
Giant panda Mei Mei, a.k.a. Hero Mother from the 1980s, gave birth seven times to 11 cubs with eight survivors. Qing Qing from the 1990s and Ya Ya recently made new breeding records via nine births and 13 newborn cubs, all of which are still alive.
The giant panda’s survival rate is at 90 percent if they are in the center, compared to 50 percent if they are in the wild.
The Chengdu Panda Base has also raised methods on how to prevent and solve problems like diseases that can endanger the health of the pandas. Red pandas are also included in the conservation, as the base has the world’s largest artificial captive red panda population.
Public education
TO enhance the protection of biodiversity, the center does not only rely on scientific research and wildlife-conservation institutes, but also on the public.
This first and largest conservation education institution in China’s zoological system promotes giant panda conservation through public education. Along Sichuan province, particularly in Chengdu City, giant pandas are everywhere. Souvenir shops, airport, malls, streets, road signs, rest rooms and even landscapes carry the figure of the adorable animal character.
The Chengdu Panda Base also emphasizes active involvement and interaction through its conservation techniques, such as training courses, school, community, education and tourism projects.
Although the center keeps on studying possible ways to keep the pandas from extinction, the base is encouraging everyone, not just the Chinese, to contribute in saving the animals and their habitat in their own ways.
Asked about the plans of the center, Ling said that, “In the future, maybe we can release one or two pandas in the wild [in Sichuan province] but, before that, we need to train them and make sure they are safe.”
Story & Photos by K.C. Niña Pusing | Special to the BusinessMirror
Image credits: K.C. Niña Pusing, K.C. Niña Pusing