Profile Blog

I’ve been a big fan of Giant Pandas since I was young, mostly because they’re adorable and from China, which makes me feel connected to them, however superficial. In my senior year of high school, I was given the chance to travel to the Chengdu Panda Conservation Center in Chengdu, China in order to help take care of the Giant Pandas there for a week. When I arrived, I was paired up with another girl from the trip, and we were matched with a Panda Master as well as two pandas, Yang Yang and Xin’r.

Our daily duties involved cleaning out their cages, both indoor and outdoor when we first arrived in the morning. We would then feed them throughout the day by breaking bamboo for them by hitting it on the ground until it split, and cutting panda bread, carrots, and apples. The feeding would happen three times a day, right after we cleaned their cages, sometime around 11 P.M and then sometime around 3 P.M as well. We would leave the conservation center at 5 P.M, but I was told that the pandas would be fed again around 7 P.M.

However the most interesting part of the trip was that we had arrived in Chengdu when it was mating season for the pandas and therefore, Xin’r, the female I was assigned to take care of, was actually a candidate to be mated. Due to that she was placed in a pen between two male pandas, Yang Yang and another. The researchers at the center would observe all the pandas there, especially the females, to see which male they preferred to mate with. I got to part take in the observation and research, watching one panda and jotting down all her actions within one-hour periods in order to determine when she would be ready to mate and to determine her attraction to each of the males on either side of her.

The whole process taught me a lot about pandas and also about how centers go about saving the species. I think this experience is unique enough that it would be able to make an interesting profile, as I don’t think many people get to hand feed pandas, observe their mating habits, or learn about their territory and how to maintain it.