wolong giant panda reserve centre

The Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Centre was one of the earliest research bases established in the early 1980s by the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Until 1989, the Ministry of Forestry of PRC and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) formulated the long-term Giant Panda Management Plan.

Today, the Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Centre has been turned into the Giant Panda Breeding Centre focusing on research works on breeding and bamboo ecology. Much other research works are being carried out at other Reserves such as the one in Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi Province.

The Centre basically takes care of giant pandas under three situations:

* when the giant pandas are brought up from captive breeding,
* when the giant pandas are somehow dispersed from the group, or are rescued from injury, and have lost the ability to survive if released back to the wild,
* when the giant panda are ready to be released back t to the wild.

The Centre has two types of 'accommodations' for giant pandas - the Captive Cages and the Semi-nature Enclosures.

Most of the giant pandas in the Centre stay individually in the captive cages, which are in fact large enclosures, each consists of an in-door room and an out-door courtyard.

The semi-nature enclosures are very large wild areas but protected by border fences. Those giant pandas that will soon be released back to the wild will be put in the semi-nature enclosures for a long enough period of time for them to adapt to the natural environment. Although food has to be provided, the giant pandas will sleep there, eat there and recover their natural survival skills there until they can be released back to the wild.