Sunday, December 11, 2005

WHAT: Wolong Nature Reserve

WHERE: Southwest China, 85 miles northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

WHY: If you can't get in to see the National Zoo's newest star, you have a much better chance of seeing a giant panda at Wolong -- 150 of them, in fact.

As with many others, my panda fanaticism began July 9, when the National Zoo's baby panda, Tai Shan, was born. Soon I was crouching with my computer in the corner of my apartment, the one place where I could pick up a WiFi signal, to catch a glimpse of the little butter stick on the Panda Cam. I'd check the National Zoo's Web site every night, in hopes of hearing the little guy squeal.

So when I moved to Beijing this fall, I immediately planned a trip to Chengdu, about a three-hour flight, to satisfy my panda pangs. I visited in mid-November, when the fall foliage was brilliant and the mid-50s temperatures were conducive to more active pandas. The reserve is open year-round, but in fall and winter, the pandas in the reserve outnumber the travelers who come to see them.

The reserve, a nonprofit organization that receives funding from international groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, was established in 1963 by the Chinese government to preserve the giant panda and its natural habitat. It encompasses 494,000 acres of forest within the eastern base of the Qionglai Mountains. Lush evergreens and broadleaf trees fill the landscape, and scattered in the brush and treetops are patches of black and white.

Driving to Wolong from Chengdu is a bit treacherous. I missed the local bus and resorted to hiring a driver. The mountain's swift switchbacks, coupled with road construction, kept me gripping my seat. Most drivers drive at full speed, hitting enormous potholes at 50 mph and passing other cars on road bends.

I gasped more than a few times, and kept asking myself, is this worth it? But one look at the gorgeous mountain views and the twitch of a furry black ear and there was no doubt.

Most guidebooks warn that a panda sighting is not guaranteed, but I found that there was no way to avoid seeing the furry ambassadors. They were everywhere. I must have seen at least 25 to 30 of the critters, scratching up against trees and rubbing their tails on the rocks.

Each panda at the reserve is given a plentiful plot of land to call its own. Those older than 18 months, the point of panda independence, are kept on large, slope-side spaces sectioned by stone walls, while the younger ones are kept together on flat, woodsy playground sites similar to those you might see at a zoo. The babies are kept in a nursery, where visitors are not allowed to enter but can sneak a peak through windows.

Paths and staircases run alongside the panda plots, up the mountain and through the trees. After a while I became almost blase as I repeatedly spotted pandas cavorting overhead in the pines.

While there are plenty of placards asking for donations in Chinese and English, there is scant information about individual pandas. Breeding and birthing areas give panda names and birth dates, but no other information is provided. I suspect this will change with time, as more foreign-born pandas are sent back to Wolong. And among them will be our very own Tai Shan. When he reaches the age of 2, according to the agreement with the Chinese government, the National Zoo will have to send him to Wolong.

Those who grew attached to San Diego's Hua Mei, the first American-born panda, know how quickly the years pass. Born in the summer of 1999, she was sent back to China in 2003. (Due to the SARS epidemic, she got an extended stay at the San Diego Zoo.) Since her move, she has given birth to two sets of twins, the most recent born in late August. She cares for one of the twins and the other is kept in the nursery. (Panda mothers generally abandon one cub when twins are born.)

I caught a glimpse of one of the twins at Wolong -- he was sleeping in the nursery's panda crib. In order to learn specific information about the pandas, such as which baby belonged to Hua Mei, I had to ask reserve employees, most of whom have very limited English.

Sonja Kalo, a visitor from Switzerland, told me that she came to the reserve to volunteer for a week. "I clean the cages and act as a panda keeper," she says. "I've always wanted to do this."

The reserve welcomes volunteers, Kalo said, but she warned that they must be prepared to come with plenty of money. Panda protection is the goal, so the reserve charges a daily fee for visitors as well as volunteers.

If you aren't up for the rough trek to Wolong, there's always the Chengdu Panda Breeding Center, established in 1987. Like the Wolong reserve, the center is dedicated to enlarging the panda population. Although it lacks Wolong's mountainous terrain and wild feel, it's a convenient half-hour drive from Chengdu's downtown, and the pandas there are plentiful. Visitors can watch as the center's 46 pandas climb trees and peel their breakfast bamboo.

Although information isn't plentiful at Chengdu either, English-speaking tour guides can provide a few helpful details about the pandas, explaining which ones are twins and which ones came from Japanese zoos. A 20-minute film explains the panda plight and the artificial insemination process, from sperm collecting to egg implanting. A panda museum should be ready for viewing by summer of 2006.

The major highlight of both Wolong and the Chengdu Breeding Center: panda hugging.

Yes, for about $100, you can hold a baby panda. In order to preoccupy the panda, an apple or a bamboo stick is slipped into its paws before it's plopped on your lap. The little guys are squirmy, have big claws and eat fast, so the bonding is over in an instant.

When I visited the center, Mike Masters, a Knoxville, Tenn., native living in Chengdu, was posing with a red panda. Masters, who teaches English in Chengdu, had a smile the size of Montana. It was the "I just held a panda" smile.

-- Laurie Burkitt