Heroes behind panda research
At Dengsheng Protection Station in Wolong National Nature Reserve, the highest protection station in Wolong with an altitude of 2,700 meters, 19 employees are in charge of patrolling and researching 80,000 hectares of mountains, valleys and rivers. Those who patrol the mountains receive a subsidy of 120 yuan ($19) per day, which many workers complain is too low.
Prior to 2008, the station had no access to electricity and workers had to make fire for warmth at night. Following the Wenchuan earthquake, workers at the station lived in makeshift shipping containers donated to them through charity programs. In recent years, after the Hong Kong government sponsored construction at the station, the employees finally had a place to live with stable electricity and internet.
Having worked at Wolong for 30 years, Yang Jian, head of the Dengsheng Protection Station, said he has seen wild pandas only three times in his career. Real wild pandas, unlike captive ones, hide from humans once they smell their arrival; spotting one in the wilderness is a rare treat.
Even though wild pandas are difficult to find, workers must pay attention to every detail in the animal's habitat while also preventing illegal poaching, tree-cutting, herb-collecting and fire hazards.
These employees are also the heroes behind research projects like China's national panda census. In order to complete the census, workers at the station divide the area into dozens of grids, then search for and pick up panda feces in each grid, often enduring extreme climate conditions.
But only one-third of the workers have a college education. Most employees, while able to patrol the mountains, don't have expert knowledge to deal with the data they themselves have collected. While the station has been actively recruiting university graduates, many quit the job after only a year or two after finding the conditions to be too demanding.
"Apart from the Wolong, Tangjiahe and Wanglang nature reserves, many reserves only have several people watching the entire area," Hu said.
Fight with wild pandas
China started training giant pandas to live in the wild in 2003. The goal is to release them into their natural habitat to boost the wild population. Programs to re-introduce and integrate pandas into the wild have, however, proved to be quite difficult.
Xiang Xiang, which translates as "Auspicious," was selected for training at the age of 2. It was released back into its natural habitat at Wolong Nature Reserve for Giant Pandas in 2006, but was found dead in February of the following year.
Experts speculated that it might have fallen from a high place after getting into a fight with the original panda "residents" over food or territory.
"Living in the wild and in an artificial environment are each very different. In terms of food, wild pandas eat bamboo shoots in the spring, bamboo in the summer and bamboo leaves in the autumn. In an artificial environment, they can eat whatever they want. Such eating habits are hard to change," Hu said.
Hu said the most ideal method would be to ask an animal expert to train pandas in the wild, but it is difficult to put it in practice. A more practical way is to place a captive female panda in a half-wild environment and attract a wild male panda to mate with her. This will introduce wild panda genes; their offspring may turn out to be more accustomed to life in the wild. But how it turns out will depend on future experiments.
