Chengdu Panda Base
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Chengdu Panda
Base
  We left our digs at seven-thirty to
be in place shortly after eight, air damp but no actual rain however, the sky
did look full of it. Overnight we had watched major lightning and from four
o’clock the rain had been solid, we kept our fingers crossed as we arrived at
the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding for
a break in the weather. Bear ready to see his
monochrome cousins.
   Beautiful jacaranda tree at the entrance to the 247 acre site, I clearly dressed to
blend in......
   Taken from the website: The Base was created on behalf of six sick and hungry giant pandas that were rescued in the 1980s. It has never captured any wild giant pandas, but has bred 172 foetuses and 261 giant pandas, and the number of existing giant pandas has hit 176 (as of Jan.25, 2017) due to technological innovation. These captive giant pandas are the largest artificial breeding population in the world, who are of exceptional genetic quality and positive individual and behavioural health conditions. Over the past 30 years, through a series of innovative scientific research, the Base has tackled problems in key technologies including artificial feeding and management of captive giant pandas, breeding and cub feeding, disease control and population genetic management, breaking technological bottlenecks. The Base has earned many original research achievements and won over seventy scientific awards.        At six minutes past eight we were
watching the teenagers at their breakfast. A few minutes later an enormous crack of thunder had the bears
look up, decide it wasn’t too big a deal and continue eating. A few minutes
later and the sky lit up, apparently pandas are non too fussed about lightning
but once again they settled back to chomping. Even when the heavens opened they
carried on. Despite anoraks, we were soaked to the skin in minutes. We bimbled
the whole park, saw loads of cute bears, three-month olds in the nursery, red
pandas, the odd cross peacock and did manage some of the duck pond and rose
garden. Too cold and soggy to do anything else but go back to our digs for a hot
bath. Here are pictures of our visit. The favourite – the chap who ate himself
to sleep.........
                 ALL IN ALL WONDERFUL TO
SEE
REALLY
CUDDLY-LOOKING |