Among Pandas: Wolong
At last, I arrived in Wolong on the evening of Saturday, 8 September 2007, after nearly 5 hours on the road, one that often saw me looking over the edge into the river that ran beside the road, and one that wound through at least two mountain tunnels that had no lighting except for headlights from on-coming vehicles. It was around 6:30 p.m. when we arrived and drove past the Wolong Panda Centre’s entrance enroute to the hotel. Dromal, my Tibetan tour guide, pointed out the Centre to me, but I would have to be patient and wait till the next morning to report for work.
For the next four days, I would go to “work” at the Wolong Panda Breeding Centre. Since I was staying at the Wolong Hotel located about eight kilometres from the Centre, Dromal helped arrange daily transport for me with a local resident who offered his van for such a purpose. This was an easy task as there were various such vans available and the fare was standard. Each morning, he would fetch me from the hotel at around 7:45 a.m., by which time I’d had breakfast and even a walk around the square next to the hotel.
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At the centre of the square is a sculpture depicting Wolong’s most famous residents.
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Like all volunteers, I was assigned to a master to assist him in his various tasks. I had two masters during my four days at Wolong – Master Huang, a young handler, had to go away on my third day to take his driving test, and I was reassigned to Master Zhou, a senior keeper who’d been with Wolong since the 1970s.
Master Huang was in charge of two pandas – Ling Ling, a male, and Hai Zhi, a new mother in confinement with her month-old cub – while Master Zhou was in charge of an expecting panda, Xi Xi. Master Huang had another volunteer, Ken from Arizona, under his charge when I joined his team. Master Zhou also had one other volunteer working under him when I was reassigned to him on my third day.
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Volunteer tasks basically centred around doing whatever the master told us to do, and nothing more. This was very important as there were areas volunteers were not allowed into. For example, Hai Zhi, one of Master Huang’s two charges, was in confinement with her month-old cub, so Ken and I were not allowed to go into her room, but only to stand at the door and carry out whatever items Master Huang passed to us, etc. In contrast, we had access to Ling Ling’s room, walking up to him and even helping to feed him. We would also help to hose down and scrub his enclosure (after he’d been let outdoors, of course), as well as change the bamboo leftovers for fresh ones, and then cart the leftovers to the rubbish room. Most times, we’d be pushing carts, either empty or full of bamboo from the supply area to the panda enclosures.
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Although this was my first trip to Wolong, I felt I’d been there before. And I have – through the various National Geographic and Animal Planet documentaries aired over Astro, including the very first documentary back in 2000. So the Wolong Panda Centre felt very familiar to me, the people and the pandas, too.
In fact, Ling Ling, one of the pandas I helped look after in Wolong, is an “old” friend who I first met when he was just a one-year-old cub featured in the National Geographic documentary aired in 2000. Ling Ling is also the father of Hua Mei’s first set of twins born in 2004. Another cub featured in the 2000 documentary, Fei Fei, would go on to give birth to Yoong Ping, the cub I adopted in 2006. Going to Wolong in September 2007 was like going home for a family reunion for me.
During my four days in Wolong, there were at least three other volunteers who were there on their own, as well as a group of around 10 from Australia. All of us had paid our own way for the experience to work with the Wolong panda keepers and handlers. For me, this was no small sum as it included airfare, accommodation, meals, and the volunteer fee, too. But it was a privilege to be able to get so close to my favourite wild animal and to be a small part of the overall giant panda conservation effort.
At the time when I saw my first giant panda documentary eight years ago, Wolong was almost inaccessible to the general public in the outside world. It’s now becoming more accessible, despite the bumpy and often dangerous road journey, and this is largely due to local travel agents offering packages to Wolong which can include volunteer fees as well as fees for taking pictures with the younger pandas there.
I have heard criticism that the volunteer programme has been commercialised because of the volunteer and photography fees charged, and also because of the travel agents who charge quite exorbitant rates for their packages to Wolong. But the fees charged go towards funding the Centre’s various research projects. As for the travel agents, if it weren’t for them, Wolong would be less accessible as it would cost even more for individuals to make their own arrangements.
There has also been criticism that the volunteer programme doesn’t really allow participants to do “real work” in Wolong. But participants can’t be allowed to do the actual conservation work because most volunteers are laypeople, many of whom are from different backgrounds with no experience. For the volunteers, it’s an opportunity to get up close with one of the world’s most beloved endangered species. For the Wolong Panda Centre, it’s a good way to allow laypeople the opportunity to see what goes on at Wolong, as well as a source for additional funding for their research projects.
For this volunteer, my journey to Wolong has been the fulfilment of a journey first begun eight years ago when I first learned about the Wolong Panda Breeding Centre from a National Geographic documentary. The journey continues as I look forward to returning to Wolong in the near future.
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