Panda Research Center

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Today we spent the afternoon after the Panda Adventure, or officially known as the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It is a wildlife reserve dedicated to the giant panda and the red panda. They specialize in breeding pandas in captivity, with world wide influence and participation. We took a cab from the center of town, for only about 35 yuan. It seemed easier than trying to find a bus.
The red pandas are adorable. They look like you could snuggle up with them. They look like large red raccoons. They were active, with two youngsters were chasing each other around their area, while other climbed around on the trees. They are endangered with around only 5,000 remaining in the wild.
The giant pandas are cute. They are larger than I imagined, the adults are the size of a large black bear. There are only around 1,000 giant pandas remaining in the wild. 80% of them are in the Sichuan region, where Chengdu is located.
They had four newborns, only two and half months old. We were not allowed to take pictures but I had a few taken before I saw the sign. They were in a large crib with a nurse taking them individually out for a stroking, which helps them go to the restroom. It doesn’t sound nice but is part of nature, the mother panda when she is stroking the young it is for the same reason.
Jing Jing is a special attraction as she is the official mascot of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. They had a television camera on her as they have live viewing 24 hrs a day, which I assume is on the internet.
Giant pandas feed 16 hours out of the day, consuming between 17 kg and 40 kg of bamboo (it depends on which part of the bamboo to how much is needed). They must eat so much because their body does not digest it very well. For this reason I find it amazing that they have not already bit the Darwin bullet. They only eat bamboo but their body is not designed to digest it well….hummm….
We saw around 8 adult and 5 sub-adult (adolescent) giant pandas. I expected to see more since I saw a sign indicating they had 48 pandas, which must include the red pandas of about 15. I assume that since we were there in the heat of the day that they were either inside the enclosures or hiding out in their areas, which were surprising large and had thick tree canopies.

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Photos

Baby giant panda
Being stroked by keeper. Taken through glass.