Chengdu Big Bearcat Research Base

[khiemtran]

Sichuan is famous as the home of the Giant Panda, and Chengdu is one of the few cities in the world with its own Panda research and breeding base.


Let's step inside the gate and see what we can see...



I wonder what lies at the end of this path through the bamboo...



This looks promising...



Aha! A panda ... from Japan!



I had a chat with one of the staff and found out this fetching panda was actually born in the Japan (presumably from Chinese parents) and sent back to its ancestral homeland.



Perhaps they already have sufficient pandas in Japan?




And what's that hiding in that greenery?



What are you up to, Mr Panda?



These are, of course, Red Pandas, the animal which gives the only distantly related Giant Panda its name.



In Chinese both animals are known as different types of Xióngmāo (熊貓) or "bear cats". The Giant Pandas are dàxióngmāo (大熊猫) or "big bear cats" (or just xióngmāo for short). In Taiwan, they are also popularly known as māoxióng (貓熊) or "cat bears".



The small, red ones, meanwhile, are known as xiăoxióngmāo (小熊貓) or "small bear cats" or hóngxióngmāo (红熊猫) or "red bear cats".



Incidentally, you might have noticed that the Chinese word for cat is "māo". Another of those words that, once you learn, you'll never forget...



Meanwhile, back to the dàxióngmāo...



It gets hot in Sichuan, especially in the summer.



So it pays to get in to see the pandas early...



It's not that much fun moving around when you're wearing a fur coat.





Of course, because this is a breeding centre, many of the pandas have their bios posted.



It's hard work dealing with all your fans sometimes.



Why don't they just go and buy some of your merchandise instead?



Remember: pandas are national treasures and they hate noise...



And they're not too fond of tiny wooden houses either.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Oh, the cuteness! I've seen videos of the babies they produce there on their breeding programme. I've never seen a giant panda in real life, though Chester Zoo has some of the "red bear cat" type pandas.

Regarding the panda born in Japan, I think the Chinese let foreign zoos have pairs of pandas on condition that any offspring are returned to their native land. At least I think that's the deal with the Scottish pandas. Still no babies in Edinburgh yet, but we will know in July whether the attempt at artificial insemination was successful.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I had never seen giant pandas in real life before either. We do have red pandas at the zoo here though. Visiting the Panda base was a bit like going to a zoo where every enclosure had pandas, instead of just the one, special one that everyone queues to see. Not that there weren't big queues once the tourist buses started to arrive.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! How amazingly lucky to see them in their natural habitat (even if they were bred elsewhere). Just wonderful. And the lesser panda--so cute! That tail.

Weirdly, I kept reading the translation of the Chinese name as beer cat.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Ha! I kept reading it that way, too! :P

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I guess that means that red pandas are just small beer cats then. (Cat bear does seem a far more logical name to me than bear cat.)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

The red pandas looked almost like raccoons or foxes, especially when they were on the ground. One of my friends who also went there, said he also encountered one outside its pen, but he wisely kept his distance.