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A hike of approximately five hundred meters (~550 yards) up hill from the Giant Panda Reserve Center you will come to Wuyipeng which was once part of the Giant Panda Reserve Center research facility. It was intentionally located closer to the habitat of the Giant Panda to allow the researchers a more convenient access to the natural habitat. Due to the relocation of the many research projects to other Giant Panda Reserves, Wuyipeng is no long fully functioning. However, weather statistics are still being recorded daily to provided limited information for the existing Giant Panda Breeding Center.
In 1980 a massive effort to study and assist the giant panda took place at Wolong Nature Reserve and initially lasted for five years. This effort was a joint effort by the World Wildlife Fund and the Chinese government.
The lead giant panda researcher was Professor Hu Jinchu of Nanchong Teacher's College and is considered to be the top naturalist in Sichuan, China. He was assisted by George Schaller who was, at the time the director of the New York Zoological Society's Conservation (who provided major funding) called Wildlife Conservation International.
During the study the researchers learned a great deal about the nutritional value and content of the bamboo, the chief food of the giant panda, and how bamboo is affected by the changing seasons. During their research they came up with an emergency plan to deal with that natural disasters, such as the sudden flowering and subsequent die-offs of the bamboo. Also studied was the giant panda's exclusive taste for the bamboo.
Because the giant panda is very hard to spot in the wild the giant pandas' behavior and daily movements were tracked and studied with the use of radio-monitoring collars. Giant pandas were trapped by the researchers in legal non-harming traps, tranquilized then weighed, measured and other pertinent data was collected. The giant panda was then set free. Each collar emitted a distinct tone seperate from all other collared giant pandas and could be detected by receivers carried by the researchers several miles away. This way the researchers could track one or more individual giant pandas through it's daily movements without directly interfering with them and causing the giant pandas to deviate from their natural movements and habits.
Researchers defined problems in the environment that threatened giant pandas and suggested solutions. The main purpose of the project was to learn to how best to help the giant pandas continue as a living species and thus avoiding extinction.
Researchers spent many hours alone tracking the giant pandas throughout the wilderness. They traced giant panda footprints in the snow onto plastic sheets. By noting special features, they were able to identify each giant panda by its footprint. This enabled the researchers to track the Giant Pandas learning were they ate and slept and individual habits.
As previously mentioned, giant pandas are difficult to spot in the wilderness, so researchers also looked for giant panda droppings, as well as the size and length of bamboo stem fragments in the dropping samples collected. The length helped the scientists determine the size of the giant pandas in the area since the larger the giant panda the larger the fragments of bamboo stalks.
Li-Li, one of the giant panda females currently living at Wolong was brought from the Bejing Zoo and placed at the Wolong Breeding Center in 1980 in the hope that she would breed. She produced the first ever cub at Wolong Nature Reserve in 1986. The cub, named Lan Tian, despite being in one of the best giant panda veterinary facilities only lived until 1990.
Much of what we currently know about the giant panda is credited to the Wolong Nature Reserve. However, the researchers and scientists' exhaustive research has not been without controversy. Mr. Schaller who has paid for part of the research, has criticized the WWF for not doing enough to actually save the giant panda. Schaller's objection was that the WWF would not force the Chinese government to help preserve the giant pandas in the wild by simply leaving them and their habitat alone. Schaller further argued that if the WWF would not have spent the money that was used for building the "vastly underused" Wolong Nature Reserve for research and breeding but rather spent that money convincing the Chinese government to keep the human presence away from those areas currently inhabited by the giant panda and to put a stop to the poaching, the giant panda may indeed survive without further human intervention. The WWF's position on this matter was that it was the only way to gain access to China and the giant panda.
Even so, the WWF has done more to protect the giant pandas than any other group. In 1958 the WWF, concerned with the saving of endangered species, adopted the giant panda as their international logo.
The Giant Panda Breeding Center was established strictly for wildlife and habitat conservation purposes, and not as tourist attractions. There are no regular visiting programs or on-site tour guides. Special arrangements and applications to the local governmental department is required in order to visit the center.
World Wide Fund For Nature Hong Kong (WWF Hong Kong), the major nature conservation organization in Hong Kong, occasionally will arrange special overseas ecotours to Wolong for their members.
Located: 30o45' to 31o25'N; 102o52' to 103o25'E
Established 1975, 207,210 hectares
Core area: 119,460 hectares
Buffer zone: 53,020 hectares
Altitude: +1,200 to +6,250 meters (+3,936.96 - +20,505 feet)
Biosphere Reserve, IUCN Category IV
Hectares: A unit of land measure equal to 100 acres or 10,000 square meters; equivalent to 2,471 acres.
Wolong Nature Reserve is located approximately 120km (74 miles) northwest of Chengdu in Wenchuan County of Sichuan Province, and covering an area of just over 207 thousand hectares,and includes the Giant Panda Research Center. The nature reserve covers an area of over 2,000 sq km and Wolong Nature Reserve was established primarily to protect the habitat of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), China's most famous endemic species, but is also rich in other mammals, birds and reptiles, with 19% of the country's animal species represented (Li and Zhao 1989). Apart from the panda, the 46 mammals inhabiting Wolong include the takin (Budorcas taxicolor), the golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana), the white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris) and the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), all of which are classified Level 1 for state protection (Li and Zhao 1989, Mackinnon et al. 1996).
The 225 bird species (Li and Zhao 1989) include a number of rare pheasants which are probably dependent on the panda reserves for their survival (Mackinnon et al. 1996). The reserve also contains over 3,000 plant species, including 667 hectares of rare dove tree (Davidia involucrata) forest (Li and Zhao 1989).
The UN has declared Wolong an international biosphere preserve and in addition to the wealth of fauna, 4,000 different types of plants are believed to grow here.
Wolong Nature Reserve is a key nature preservation area designed primarily to protect and reproduce the giant panda. In 1982, it was admitted by the UNESCO to be part of "the International Reserve Net of Man and Biosphere." Lying on the complicated land formations of transition area from the Qinghai and Tibet Plateau to the Sichuan Basin, and with a cool climate, it's endowed with favorable conditions for the preservation and reproduction of a number of living beings.
In the Reserve, there are over 4,000 species of plants, which have a very conspicuous vertical spectrum of vegetation. It differs with different elevations above sea level. Located 1,155-2,070 meters above sea level is the belt of broad-leaf trees; 2,070-2,500 meters, mixed broad-leaf and coniferous trees; 2,500-3,800 meters, coniferous trees with fir as the main plant; over 3,800 meters, high mountain grassy marshland; more than 4,400 meters, shifting stone shoals, with only snow lotus and a few other plants; over 4,600 meters, nothing but snow.
The Wolong Nature Reserve is gifted with numerous types of ancient and precious and rare trees, some of which were imported, i.e. Japanese larch, the U.S pine, European dragon spruce etc. Among the floras are over 200 kinds of medicinal materials including the most famous ones: the bulb of fritillary, the tuber of elevated gastrodia, Chinese caterpillar fungus, the bark of eucommia etc. It abounds in bamboos which are the favorite feed of the grand panda.
The Wolong Nature Reserve is also a world of flowers. Fifteen types of azalea have been discovered. In autumn, myriad blossoms and tree leaves of various colors decorate the mountains and forests like a series of brilliant and colorful paintings.
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