The Race to Save Pandas

March 4, 2019

Do you see two panda parents cuddling a cub in the photo? Take a closer look. Those adult pandas are humans in costume! They care for baby pandas high in the mountains of China. It’s all part of a plan to keep the furry animals from dying out.

Do you see two panda parents cuddling a cub in the photo? Take a closer look. Those adult pandas are people in costume! They care for baby pandas in the mountains of China. It’s part of a plan to keep the furry animals from dying out.

Protecting Pandas

Giant pandas face some big threats. They mainly eat a plant called bamboo. But for years, people destroyed China’s bamboo forests to build farms and roads. By the 1970s, only about 1,000 pandas were left in the wild.

China set up reserves to protect panda homes. But scientists wanted to do more. In 2003, they started a program at the Wolong Nature Reserve. They make sure cubs learn to survive—and then release them into the wild. To keep the cubs from getting used to people, they wear panda suits!

Giant pandas face big threats. They mainly eat a plant called bamboo. But for years, people destroyed China’s bamboo forests to build farms and roads. By the 1970s, only about 1,000 pandas were left in the wild.

China set up reserves to protect panda homes. But scientists wanted to do more. In 2003, they started a program at the Wolong Nature Reserve. They make sure cubs there learn to survive. Then they release the cubs into the wild. They wear panda suits to keep the cubs from getting used to people!

Success Story

A panda named Qinxin (cheen-sheen) made news in December as the ninth cub to be successfully released. Qinxin was born at Wolong in 2016. For two years, she was raised by her mother. She learned the skills she would need to live on her own, like finding bamboo to eat and climbing trees to avoid predators.

Scientists wore panda suits to check in on her. They soaked the suits in panda urine so that Qinxin wouldn’t detect their scent.

By late 2018, Qinxin was finally ready. She and another panda were released into the mountains. Special tracking collars let scientists see where they go.

Scientists hope that someday Qinxin and other released cubs will have babies of their own. They say the future of the species may depend on it.

A panda named Qinxin (cheen-sheen) made news in December. She was the ninth cub to be successfully released from Wolong. She was born in 2016. For two years, she was raised by her mother. She learned the skills she would need to live on her own. For example, she learned to find bamboo and to climb trees to avoid predators.

Scientists wore panda suits to check in on her. They soaked the suits in panda urine. That way, Qinxin couldn’t detect their scent.

By late 2018, Qinxin was finally ready. She and another panda were released into the mountains. Special tracking collars let scientists see where they go.

Scientists hope that someday Qinxin and other released cubs will have babies of their own. They say the future of the species may depend on it.