Earthquake relief efforts and giant panda conservation

Fengtongzhai National Nature Reserve

The China Giant Panda is known and cherished around the world. The panda, one of the most rare and beloved animals in the world, is threatened with extinction - only about 1,000 pandas live in the wild. Although historically pandas were found throughout much of China and in Burma and Laos, today all of the wild pandas in the world live in six isolated forest areas in central China.

As early as 1869, a French Christian preacher, David, come to Fengtongzhai founded the church and firstly show panda to the world. The mountain and stream in there is beautiful here, bamboo grow in luxuriantly green. It is a sweet home for panda dwell in. And the most regional people are catholic adherent. So if you are Christian and love panda, love nature, come to Fengtongzhai. May be the panda in there known English, because they are always listen the Christian carols from the church.

Fengtongzhai National Reserve, established in 1975. In mountains & valley area of 39,000 hectares reserved, located at Baoxing county in Ya’an, total animals about 380 species, 395 kinds of plants in this area. There are 7 conservative portions in this reserve. It is about 250km away from Chengdu. Now there are 4 captive giant pandas. In it's history, the Preserve has ever treated and cured 23 giant pandas, and 20 of them alive. According to the census, the quantity of panda in this county is more than 300, accounting for 1/3 of national total amount. For these pandas, 12 of them sent to other places (country) as gift by China Government, 8 of them placed back to wild condition (their real family).

The local people have since learned to protect giant pandas and take care of animals whenever they are in need. In the early 1980s bamboos bloomed in the several habitats in Sichuan province. Many villagers of Baoxing county chipped in to help starving giant pandas survive. One family living in a village called "Happy Valley" even "adopted" starving giant pandas and fed them candied rice porridge.

History of first panda introduced to western world

The modern name of giant panda can be attributed to the French missionary Armand Pere David. He lived in China for 12 years from 1862 to 1874. Perching in Beijing and Shanghai, David was also a correspondent researcher of the National Museum of France. A natural historian, David has found 68 new species of birds, over one hundred species of insects, and many mammal species-including the Milu deer, golden monkey and the giant pandas- in various places of China. In March 1869, David came to the catholic church in Dengchigou of Muping (now Banshan County) of Sichuan and became the fourth preaching priest there. The Dengchigou Catholic Church was one of the earliest churches secretly built by the Cathedral Church of France in Sichuan.

In his journal, David writes: "On March 11, 1869, when I was on my way back to the Church, I was invited to have a rest in a Mr. Li's home. In his home, I saw the panda's skin. It's big and beautiful colored black and white. The skin was quite peculiar. Li told me that I would see this animal very soon, for his hunters were going to hunt this animal…it seemed that a new species in the science domain will be found…"

In his Jounal of March 23, 1869, David writes: "After leaving for 10 days, the hunters were back today. They brought a young whitebear to me. It was caught alive, but was killed only to bring it back more easily." David pitied the death of the young panda cub, and he wrote on: "they sold the young whitebear to me at a very high price. The body of the whitebear was all white except that the legs, the ears and the places around its two eyes are black. It has the same skin color as a grown-up bear that I have seen before. I believe it to be a new species, not only because of its skin color, but also because of the hair beneath its feet and other characteristics.

David sent this specimen of whitebear to Melne Edwards, the director of the Natural Museum of Paris, who studied the skin and skeleton of the animal and published a paper in 1870, announcing "in terms of external features, it is really very close to bears; but its skeleton and teeth are apparently different from bears---actually very close to raccoons. It must be a new species, and I name it Ailuropoda." Paying tribute to David's contribution, Edwards named the scientific name of the Giant panda as Ailuropoda melanoleuca David, which has been used utill now. The first giant panda specimen collected by David is still kept in the Natural Museum of Paris.