China's National Treasure!

Names: Chelsey Butler and Catherine Jenkins
Class Year: 2019 and 2020
Hometown: Williamstown, WV and Proctorville, OH
Internship: Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
Location: Chengdu, Sichuan, China

The entrance into Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Nî hâo from Catherine and Chelsey at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. As our second week of our ten week stay is coming to a close, we have already fell in love with the Research Base and the people here. Giant Panda's are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The main threats to the panda populations are human encroachment, deforestation, and other negative human interactions. 

This past week we have worked with many volunteers to help educate the public as well as other foreigners visiting the Base about Giant Pandas. It's a great feeling watching the visitors get excited about learning more on giant pandas, red pandas, and what they can do to help. For the past two days we have informed visitors on the various adaptations that pandas have evolved to better suit their diet. Among the many people we have educated was a local school group from Chengdu. They were so excited to learn from the staff from the Panda Base as well as learn the english names to the animals they already love.

Panda program at the metro station 

Not only have we helped educate the public we have helped the staff review the english throughout the Base, as well as many of their articles. Next week we will be moved to the husbandry department for the rest of May.










Panda Question of the Week!
Which skull shown in the picture is a Giant Panda skull? (Can you identify the other two as well?)

Models shown during our interpretive talk 

Exploring the Base has been an adventure on its own but since we are in China we also wanted to explore throughout Chengdu! We have learned that we are not good at figuring out which bus to take to get to a destination but we have successfully mastered the metro station! Last weekend we visited the Wenshu Monastery, Jinli Ancient Street, and Du Fu Thatched Cottage.