China's wild pandas: black and white and not all over

CLIFFORD COONANventures into Niba Shan Forest, in Sichuan province, on the trail of China's reclusive giant panda

CLIPBOARDS AND ZIPLOC bags at the ready, the Fourth Panda Research Group plunge deep into the wild bamboo forest of the mountains of Sichuan, looking for signs of that cute, painfully private and highly endangered black-and-white marvel known as the giant panda.

A cry goes up from the Mao-suited guide, who hacks his way through the forest with a machete. On the floor of the Niba Shan forest is a pile of panda droppings, which look like four avocados lying in the grass. No pandas, maybe, but the researchers are excited: some have not seen a panda in the wild in three years of tracking the beasts. It’s a landmark find in the once-in-a-decade census of the panda population in China, the only country where giant pandas live in the wild.

“This is great. We can tell an awful lot from these droppings,” says Gu Xiaodong, deputy head of the research group. “It looks like a young panda’s dung, because there are only a few bits of bamboo shoot in the droppings, and young pandas like to eat the leaves.”

The researchers will gather the DNA to build up a broader picture of how many pandas live here in Yunjing county.

A national emblem that supposedly brings good luck, the panda is a potent symbol in China, where they are called da xiong mao, or “big bear cat”. But pandas are a perilously endangered species, and finding out how many still exist is a crucial part of efforts to save them.

There are 328 pandas living in zoos and research centres in China, and their chances of survival in captivity has been improved in the past few years by the success of breeding programmes and redoubled efforts to control the destruction of their natural habitats, but their continued existence in the wild is essential if the species is to prevail.

The previous census, conducted between 1999 and 2003, found that China had 1,596 wild giant pandas: 1,206 in Sichuan, 273 in Shaanxi and 117 in Gansu.

We are in Survey Zone XYJ419, a two-square-kilometre patch of mountainside. Getting to this zone involved a five-hour drive from the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu, along mountain roads made treacherous by landslides. As we work our way over the difficult terrain at 2,300m, a law graduate turned panda surveyor named Huang Jian checks his GPS set and writes notes.

“The panda survey was looking for staff when I graduated, so I applied. Pandas are a treasure, so it’s a big responsibility,” says Huang. “It’s very unusual to see a panda. They are private creatures. Even finding panda droppings is unusual.”

As well as droppings, the researchers are looking for footprints, bite marks, any evidence that pandas are living in the land they are surveying. There are limitations to the survey, and one can cover only so much of this mountainous area on foot, no matter how surefooted your guide. Pandas are resourceful when it comes to guarding their privacy.

Attempts to reintroduce pandas raised in captivity into the wild have not succeeded so far, so the Beijing government is keen to ensure the survival of the giant panda in the wild. This is China’s national symbol, after all. The survey will show what future lies in store for the giant panda. The central government has reined in destruction of the bamboo forest that provides them with the shoots that are its staple food, but road construction and other forms of development have wrought havoc.

The census began at the end of June, focusing initially on Wanglang National Park, then expanding to cover the whole panda region. The survey is co-ordinated by the state forestry bureau and is due to be finished by 2013. Gu is optimistic it will reveal a rise in the population, pointing to the dense foliage as evidence: deforestation was stopped in these parts in 1998.

“Based on our experience in the past decade, we think there will be more pandas because pandas are appearing in places where they weren’t before. But that’s only a feeling,” says Gu. “The first thing is to know how many pandas there are. But for us, actually, the evaluation of the panda’s habitat is the most important.”

To be sure to see giant pandas in Sichuan, go to the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu, where 12 cubs have been born this year out of 25 worldwide – eight were born elsewhere in China.

This is a focal point for the survey and, along with the Wolong Panda Research Centre, also in Sichuan, is where nearly all the research on pandas in the wild takes place.

Dr Qi Dunwu, a scientist, is deputy head of research at Chengdu Panda Base. The facility was set up in 1983, when 10 pandas were rescued from near-death and researchers began to look for ways to improve pandas’ ability to breed.

The base is an impressive site, spread over 106 hectares and with 108 pandas altogether. It has not taken any animals from the wild in more than two decades. In one enclosure, four baby pandas are curled up with each other, snoozing.

“Our feeling is that there will be more pandas. We hope so, anyway. According to our information, pandas have appeared in areas where there used to be no pandas. But, as far as the survey goes, objectively speaking we are primarily focused on the data the survey provides,” says Qi.

Back in the wild, at the forestry centre that the survey group is using as a base, the surveyors share with us their dinner of chicken cooked with Sichuan peppers, fresh vegetables and spicy tofu. It has been a successful day, though another group apparently saw a panda the previous day and there had been modest hopes of a sighting. We are happy with our panda dung.

Playing hard to get Panda breeding

Just like everyone else in China, pandas follow a one-child policy. They spend the year alone except for a three-month mating season starting in March.

The female panda has only three days a year in which she can conceive, during which time she emits a distinctive sound and her sexual organs turn red, then white. With such a brief fertility period, the female likes to play hard to get.

Females generally give birth to just one offspring after a pregnancy lasting about 160 days, and the cub weighs about as much as an apple when it is born. Females are not equipped to care for two cubs: when twins are born, the mother will often abandon one or crush a cub in its sleep.

For years it was notoriously difficult to get pandas to breed in captivity, and just 300 have been born in research facilities and zoos since the programme began, in 1963. Captive male pandas suffer from a chronic lack of sex drive: more than 60 per cent show no sexual desire at all, and only 10 per cent will mate naturally.

Wild pandas kill any domesticated pandas released into the wild, and pandas’ love of bamboo is also problematic, as they have a very inefficient digestive system that cannot break down cellulose well.

Researchers believe that the survey results will do much to banish the notion of pandas as somehow too inept to survive in the modern world, or as evolutionary oddities.

“These animals get bad propaganda. Only pandas in captivity behave stupidly. In the wild they breed just like any other bears,” says Gu Xiaodong. “Pandas are special.”