Unseen heroes of the bamboo forests: the protectors of China's giant pandas

In the mountains of Daxiangling in Ya'an, Sichuan province, a dedicated group of youths traverses dense bamboo forests, carefully monitoring the flora and fauna. They are often not seen or heard from for weeks at a time.

They are the 27 members of the Yingjing county patrol station of the Giant Panda National Park in Sichuan. With an average age of around 30, all the station's patrollers are college graduates.

"We patrol the rolling mountains where giant pandas reside without electricity or signal. So we can be disconnected," said Fu Mingxia, deputy chief of the station.

Wild pandas survive solely in six mountain ranges within Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Fu and the other station members patrol Daxiangling, which boasts the Daxiangling Giant Panda Wilderness and Reintroduction Research Base, the world's largest giant panda reintroduction training center.

The team's routine is to collect bamboo leaves and soil samples to check for pests and deterioration. They are looking for signs that the leaves are unsuitable for pandas to eat and that the soil is not ideal for growing bamboo.

They also monitor recordings from the infrared cameras installed in the mountains, gather information about giant pandas and collect panda droppings.

Scientists use the droppings to identify the sex of the pandas, which is how they determine the number of males and females in an area and if a captive male or female panda needs to be released to expand the population, Fu said.

"We look for images of pandas in the cameras to see if they are all right. If they are not, we inform rescue workers," Fu said.

On a typical day, they head for the mountains at 8 am and don't return until night. They keep records of what the cameras capture and any other observations they make about the mountains.

Spring is the giant panda mating season, and their behavior changes during the winter to survive the harsher weather. During these periods, the patrol sometimes stays in the mountains for weeks without returning home. "We have more to observe," Fu said.

Her dedication has not gone unnoticed. Fu was named the Most Beautiful Patroller in 2019, just two years after starting the job. Every year, the Sichuan provincial forestry and grassland bureau and an environmental public welfare foundation award the title to honor grassroots patrollers who make exceptional contributions to Sichuan's ecological environment.

China's latest panda census — released in 2015 — showed that 22 of the 33 groups of wild pandas found in the census faced the danger of extinction.

By the end of last year, China was home to 728 captive pandas and 1,900 wild pandas, indicating that the captive panda population is now self-sustaining.

Releasing captive pandas is essential for growing the wild panda population, according to Zhang Hemin, chief expert of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan.

Twelve captive pandas have been released into the wild in China since 2003 to enlarge the wild panda population. Ten are still alive, according to Wu Daifu, an expert in reintroducing captive pandas into the wild at the center.

One of the 12 released pandas is in Daxiangling, where Fu and her colleagues patrol.