PANDA WATCHING, NEAR AND FAR

By CINDA CHAVICH

Special to the Globe and Mail

(CHENGDU, China) - As if on cue, the giant black and white panda plunks herself down at the front of a large, leafy enclosure, carefully stripping the elongated foliage from a stalk of fresh bamboo and munching contentedly as  cameras click furiously.

Like every kid’s familiar toy, “Pride” seems like a teddy more than a bear – fat, fuzzy and unquestionably cute in her comical black and white attire. Tourists gape in delight as she lolls calmly in the grass, her furry white belly exposed above splayed legs and a fistful of greenery protruding from teddy bear teeth. Nearby, a wooly baby struggles up a tree, balancing precariously like a small clown on a tight rope, then bounces playfully to the ground.

Only the terminally-cynical could resist the natural charm of this rare bear, making it the perfect poster species to raise awareness, and money, for disappearing wildlife habitat around the world.

Sadly, the giant panda deserves its fame as a symbol for the environmental movement - it  is as threatened as almost any other animal on earth. China is the only place where giant pandas still exist in the wild, and the best estimates put numbers of these shy and solitary creatures at between 600 and 1,000 individuals, isolated in ever-shrinking pockets of bamboo forest along the country’s western frontier.

That’s why this panda breeding centre, just outside Sichuan province’s capital of Chengdu, has become the leading institute for panda research and conservation in the world. Since it opened in 1987, scientists at the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding have coaxed a population of six rescued pandas into a breeding stock of 43. Trekking along pathways through the large park, visitors can view the animals in their big, open-air enclosures, learn about preservation of their habitat in a new giant panda museum, and watch as scientists tend to the latest batch of precious newborns.

By 2010, they hope to have 60-80 pandas here, with the goal of reintroducing captive-bred animals to wilderness reserves. This fall, six young giant pandas at the base began the first experimental “transitional feralization training” program, and scientists announced excitedly in December that their initial food training project  “succeeded!” with the pandas taking stalks of bamboo presented in a “natural, upright fashion” for the first time. Within the next two years, researchers hope to move these “feralized” pandas to a much larger, 120,060-square meter enclosed environment, complete with lakes, streams, woods and bamboo forests, to help them gain more independence before their eventual release into wilderness  reserves.

While some experts have criticized such breeding programs, suggesting that pandas bred in captivity are little more than pampered pets created for zoo visitors, Zhang Zhihe, head of the research base, says captive breeding is essential to study these animals and to maintain genetic diversity. And even though 85 per cent of the world’s wild panda’s live in the mountainous forests of Sichuan province, the Chengdu research base remains the best place to actually encounter China’s “national treasure.”

The Chinese government has designated 33 reserves for giant pandas, including the Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve, a three-hour drive north of the capital, and the Wanglang Nature Reserve, situated in a remote area along Sichuan’s northern border, where an estimated 280 pandas range through steep mountain terrain. It’s possible to visit both areas to hike with naturalists and park guides but it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a giant panda in the bamboo thickets. And unless there’s a major shift in support of habitat conservation, spotting a panda in the wild may become even more difficult in the future.

Despite the Chinese government’s freeze on commercial logging  in southwestern forests in 1998, rural population growth has pressed pandas into smaller and smaller wild spaces. Half of their habitat has been destroyed in the past 20 years and numbers continue to dwindle.  Giant pandas now live in 29 isolated “forest islands” within six forests in central China  - some in swathes of bamboo as narrow as 1,000 m and most with fewer than 20 other individuals. Poaching of giant pandas has all but disappeared since China imposed penalties of up to life imprisonment, but some are still killed in traps set for other wild game.

So it’s not surprising that these ancient animals – known to exist 2-3 million years ago throughout south central China – are struggling. Once carnivores, the slow-moving giant pandas have evolved to become almost exclusive bamboo eaters. Each adult consumes 15-30 kg (33-66 pounds) of bamboo each day but the panda isn’t an efficient calorie converter. Only 20 per cent of its fibrous bamboo diet is digested and, with the added water weight, a panda can actually excrete more than it eats, up to 48 kg (88 pounds) of panda poo per day (the only evidence of the shy panda that you’ll likely encounter in the forest).

They’re equally inefficient as breeders. Giant pandas are solitary animals  - encounters only occur during the brief, spring breeding season.  Pandas don’t reach sexual maturity for five or six years. Females are fertile for only a few days a year and typically have one cub. If twins are born, the weaker cub is usually abandoned. In the wild, baby pandas – which weigh only 100 g at birth and completely dependent on their mothers for the first six months of life – face a 40 per cent mortality rate.

Since 1981, the World Wildlife Fund (WFF) has supported several giant panda conservation projects in China, including  help for scientists and rangers at the Wolong and Wanglang reserves.  Wolong is relatively close to the city and visitors can interact, feed and even hold tame pandas there. The Wanglang NR in Sichuan’s Minshan Mountains has been at the centre of a WWF project to encourage self-sufficiency through responsible  eco-tourism.  A hostel-like lodge and visitor centre recently opened on the reserve, and local Baima people – themselves an endangered population – are learning how to make tourism as lucrative as logging once was.

Still, this area remains one of the poorest in the country and ideas like wildlife conservation and sustainable development are new.  The Chinese government does not provide funds to support the cash-strapped reserves and development interests remain at odds with conservationists.

The new infrastructure  for “panda tourism” may help save the Sichuan wilderness for pandas. At Wolong, new tourist hotels like the Panda Hotel have opened making overnight trips from Chengdu popular. Even remote Wanglang has seen visitor numbers explode in recent years,  to 20,000 in 2002, from only 1,000 in 1997.

But if you’re only in the capital for a brief visit, a trip to the panda research base offers a chance to see pandas and support panda conservation work. An oasis of green on the edge of this bustling Chinese city (pop. 10 million), the 243-hectare (600-acre) park is a refreshing place to walk among the arching bamboo and tranquil ponds. A film playing in the museum theatre offers an insider’s look at the birth of a tiny, hairless panda baby and, if you’re lucky, you can watch scientists caring for newborns, as we did – sleepy babies in incubators, isolated behind glass, like any hospital maternity ward.

A visit here will put you as close to these adorable creatures as you’ll likely get anywhere. It’s a reminder of why all wild animals deserve their own places on the planet.

IF YOU GO:

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province, a lively city famous for spicy Sichuan cuisine, relaxing tea houses and opera. The new Shuangliu International Airport is one of the six largest airports in China (Air Canada flies direct to Beijing or Shanghai where you can make connections with domestic airlines) and the city is a major railway hub with lines arriving from Kunming, Chonqing and Baoji.

Chengdu Research Base  for Giant Panda Breeding (or Panda City): The park (twice named  a Global 500 destination by the UN) is home to dozens of giant pandas, red pandas (ring-tailed orange and white climbers that resemble their relatives the raccoon),  and rare black-necked cranes. Situated in northern suburbs of Chengdu on North Axe Hill, 10 km from downtown, via Panda Road. Open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Entrance fee $2. Take a taxi ($6) or bus to the Longchang Bus Station then a mini-bus to the park. Phone: (028)8350-5513.

Wanglang Nature Reserve: A 320-square km forest reserve, eight-hours north of Chengdu, which is home to 32 wild giant pandas, rare takin and golden monkeys. Traditional Baima people live in villages in the area. The Wanglang Forest Lodge can accommodate 50 people ( in10 triple and 10 double rooms with shared bath) and has a restaurant featuring Sichuan cuisine. The reserve and park headquarters are 10 km away from the lodge. Naturalist guides are available for hiking and bird watching. Phone or fax: (0816) 8825-312.

Nearby sites include Jiuzhaigou National Park, famed for it’s walls of waterfalls and clear blue lakes, and Huanglong National Park, with its terraced calcium carbonate pools.

Winnipeg-based Canada One Vacations (www.canada-one.com, 1-800-668-6889) is offering its first a 12-day China/Giant Panda tours this spring, led by Manitoba naturalist  and polar bear expert David Hatch. The tour, planned for April 8 and April 18 departures, includes visits to sites in Beijing, Xian and Chengdu and a chance to feed  and interact with pandas at the Wolong Nature Reserve .

Karma Quest of California (www.KarmaQuests.com, 650-560-0101) has a more adventurous, 17-day panda tour which features five days in the Wanglang area including hikes and accommodation in the Wanglang Forest Lodge, and visits to Baima and Tibetan villages.

To arrange day trips from downtown Chengdu to the panda breeding research base, contact  a CITS office (China International Travel Service)  through their website, www.cits.net

(a version of this story first appeared in the Globe and Mail newspaper)

©Cinda Chavich

www.tastereport.com