What kind of animal comes to your mind, when you think about wildlife in China? Most of the people will probably of course think about the giant panda. And if you are into panda bears and want to do your paid internship in China and are still not clear, to which city you should go, the giant panda could be the reason, why you should consider to do your paid internship in Chengdu as Chengdu is worldwide known for its Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and that goes so far, that people already call Chengdu the capital of the panda.
Originally the giant panda, in Chinese called 大熊猫 (dàxióngmāo), which means literally big bear-cat, populated large parts of eastern China and Myanmar. Because of climate changes, the growth of human settlement and cultivation and poaching, the population was decimated dramatically. Nowadays there is just a very small wild population in China, which contains about 1600 animals in mountain regions mainly in the province of Sichuan, but also of Gansu and Shaanxi. Since 1939, the giant panda is officially protected by law and even has in China together with the Great wall, the Forbidden City or the Terracotta Army, the status of a national treasure. About 10 % of them are living at the Wolong national park in Sichuan.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was established in 1987 with the mission to preserve and to further the research about the giant panda. At the moment at base are living more than 100 pandas and since its establishment, there were over 170 pandas born.
When you are doing you paid internship in Chengdu, you can just take to bus to visit them. There are several enclosures, where you can watch these huge and gentle bears chilling in the sun, running around and eat their favourite food – bamboo. It is worthwhile to go in the morning, because they are feed in the morning and are most active at this time. And you can even watch some baby pandas strolling around!
Besides the giant panda, the Chengdu Reasearch Base of Giant Panda Breeding also holds some enclosures for the small red panda. For more information about the red panda and how to go to the base, check out our other article: https://www.paidinternshipsinchina.com/the-underestimated-panda
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