DAY 44a
CHENGDU ~ Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (Sichuan, CHN)
Saturday August 19th, 2017
TODAYS MILEAGE – 311 miles or 501 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 35,079 miles or 56,454 kilometres
Driving about 40 minutes northeast of "Chengdu" we stopped of at the world renowned "Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center" or the "Panda Park", as it is known locally.
We timed our arrival for just before the official 8AM opening and avoided most of the queues for the best part of a couple of hours. By 10AM the park had become noticeably crowded, with line-ups for literally everything in the park.
Panda Park is a non-profit research and breeding facility for giant pandas, which are found only in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. The 92 acre (37 hectare) site was founded in 1987 with 6 giant pandas that were rescued from the wild. By 2008 it had achieved 124 panda births and the captive panda population has grown to 83.
Aside from the traditional black & whites pandas, a highlight for me was the "Red Panda" (also called the lesser panda, the red bear-cat, or the red cat-bear) encounter. which I had never heard of prior to this visit.
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