Giant Pandas

If you are planning a trip to China, remember that while a visit to the Great Wall is of course unmissable, a visit to a giant panda research & breeding center is almost even more unmissable! Giant panda once occupied almost all of southwestern to southeastern China. Today, the giant panda lives in the wild in about 50 special reserves in the two aforementioned mountain ranges: in the part of the Minshan Mountains that straddles Sichuan and Gansu Provinces, and in the part of the Qinling Mountains that lies in Shaanxi Province.

In addition, the giant panda lives in special breeding & research centers and in zoos throughout China and around the world. The special research & breeding centers of China are:

The best place in the world to see giant pandas, the giant panda Breeding & Research Base at Mount Futou, located on the northern perimeter of the city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province,

The Wolong National Nature Reserve, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, located about 140 kilometers northwest of Chengdu along the north-south oriented (here) National Highway G213, near the intersection with the east-west oriented National Highway G317,

The Bifengxia Panda Base, city of Ya'an, Sichuan Province, located about 140 kilometers southwest of the city of Chengdu.

In China, the giant panda can also be seen at the Beijing Zoo, Shanghai Zoo, Seven Star Park Zoo, Guilin, Ocean Park in Hong Kong and Taipei Zoo, city of Taipei, Taiwan.

Giant Panda Overview

Giant Panda Versus Red Panda

The term "Giant Panda" probably suggests to you that there exist other panda "sizes". In fact, the word "panda" was for many years used only to describe the "other" panda>>Read more

The Word "Panda"

The origin of the English term "panda" is uncertain. A rather wild guess – the word doesn't mean anything in any known language! – but a possibly close one, is the Nepali word ponya from the phrase >>Read more

A Spotty History

The existence of the Great Panda went undiscovered for much of the history of Imperial China. The panda's absence from Chinese paintings prior to the 20th century – in spite of the fact that>>Read more

Future Prospects

Today, the numbers of Giant Pandas are up for a number of reasons: better breeding in captivity and release into the wild and reclamation of lost habitat/ removal of humans from key panda habitats>>Read more

Bare Facts

1) Though it will grow to be a giant – if it lives (in nature, almost one-half of infant pandas do not survive, for a number of reasons, including the threat from predators such as eagles, wild dogs and snow leopards, and, of course, from a lack of proper nutrition that is ultimately owing to the loss of habitat caused by human encroachment, though about 90% of panda infants in captivity survive) – the infant panda is born a midget at only 15-17 centimeters (6-7 inches) in length and weighing, on average, 150 grams (5 ¼ ounces). It will not open its eyes for 6-8 weeks, and is born with a long tail that quickly shrinks to a more normal size as it grows (the adult panda has the second-largest tail among bears, measuring between 10-15 centimeters (4-6 inches). More Bare Facts about Giant Pandas

A Bear's Life

Introduction

Panda families consist of mama bear and baby bear, with papa bear completely out of the picture as soon as mama bear and papa bear have mated, meaning that papa bear is about as useful to mama bear and baby bear, at that point, as is a bicycle to a fish. Read more

Baby Bear

The giant panda infant is born a helplessly blind (its eyes are "sealed"), toothless and naked little creature with only a very light "down" of fine white hair that cannot conceal its tiny, fragile, pink-skinned body.Read more

Habitat

The giant panda requires bamboo, and bamboo requires a cool, moist climate, therefore the panda, by extension, requires a cool, moist climate. Moreover, given the panda's stocky build with its thick fur, both of which are the result of having adapted to a diet of bamboo (the original, meat-eating panda probably resembled a more normal type of bear, just as the original giraffe, before it adapted to dining off trees, probably resembled a more normal, even-toed ungulate, or hoofed animal (which even-toed category includes the deer, the antelope, the camel and most of the domesticated farm animals less the horse, which is odd-toed), the panda is dressed for a cool, moist climate and would therefore not thrive in a hot, dry climate. Read More

WHERE THE GIANT PANDA LIVES

Giant panda lives in the wild in about 50 special reserves in the two mountain ranges. In addition, the giant panda lives in special breeding & research centers and in zoos throughout China and around the world. Read more

AN UNLIKELY VEGETARIAN

Despite being a carnivore by nature, the giant panda gradually switched over to eating the bamboo plant ages ago, a plant that it shares with the red panda and a number of lemur types (certain rodents eat bamboo roots, Read more

Hug A Bear – Save A Biotope

The Work Of The WWF

The poster child of the World Wildlife Fund's threatened and endangered species is of course the panda – the Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca subspecies, to be more exact, or the black and white panda. However, the enormous amount of WWF's work Read more

HUG A BEAR

If you are planning a trip to China, remember that while a visit to the Great Wall is of course unmissable, a visit to a giant panda research & breeding center is almost even more unmissable! It would be an experience of a lifetime. Read more

THE PANDA CARE VOLUNTEER PROGRAM

You can volunteer to be a panda helper at either the Wolong or the Bifengxia giant panda research & breeding center. You can volunteer for 1 – 3 days, whichever fits your vacation plans best. You will be working alongside professional panda keepers and the respective center's research staff, and of course you will be working alongside volunteers just like yourself from all over the world. Depending on the length of your stay, you will be performing some or all of the following activities Read More