CHENGDU, CHINA
A giant panda cub enjoys the spring sunshine at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It may look like it hasn’t got a care in the world, but it’s actually part of a very important conservation effort to help boost the numbers of pandas in the world.
Though pandas are a true Chinese icon, there are only an estimated 2,000 currently living in the wild. Complicating the efforts to boost their numbers, these animals tend to live in small, fragmented populations. The isolation of their habitats limits the pandas’ gene pool, and also reduces their opportunities to breed.
To help prevent the species from reaching critically endangered levels, scientists at the Chengdu Research Base in China’s Sichuan province have been working to increase the captive panda population, and over 200 cubs have been born and raised in its breeding programme. But now they’re going even further, and are aiming to introduce some of these cubs into the wild.
Many breeding attempts have been based on the idea that by minimising contact with their human keepers, the captive creatures won’t become reliant on them and will be better equipped to survive in the wild. Researchers at the nearby Wolong National Nature Reserve, for example, wear black and white panda suits so they look like their charges. But the new method at Chengdu takes the opposite approach, where the human element is key. By earning the pandas’ trust, biologists at the centre are more easily able to monitor and guide them when they are released into the wild.