Ya’an still isn’t awake as we leave the apartment at 6:30 am to grab some breakfast before heading up the hill to Bifengxia. Our typical meal consists of meat or mushroom dumplings and warm soy milk in bowls, usually costing about 0.85 cents. The shopkeeper is always excited to see us come in and greets us with smiles and cigarettes. Politely refusing, we take our time scarfing down 3-4 steamy delights and then head for the mini-store for later-in-the-day snacks. With our bags overflowing with ramen noodle packs, chocolate bars, and water bottles, we made our way to the bus stop for a 7:45 pick up.

Given that it’s the start of the slow season for Bifengxia, there is not as many employees riding up the hill with us. However, this is a blessing in disguise as we don’t have to compete for a seat or sit on the floor. It takes about 30 minutes to get up the hill and we arrive around 8:20. The first order of operations is to look at the schedule and see what bears we will be observing for the day. After figuring out where they are located, we then go over their previously established behaviors and then walk over to their enclosures to start our observations. As the temperature is now holding steady at 40 degrees F, we are all bundled up to the max. It wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t standing still for 1-2 hours in a slight breeze. I even had to put on an extra layer and I love the cold weather.

Our first bear to observe is always Wu Gang. I like to begin with him as he is a highly stereotypic bear and is consistent in his behaviors which also makes him predictable. In short, he is a great subject to train the newbies on. He has a few new female neighbors, for which he seems to be very excited. Makes me wonder how this could affect his success for the next breeding season? Which is one of the questions that we hope to address in our next publication. We conclude our observation and then walk the entire base to get a sense of all of the bears locations. This gives us plenty of time to talk about the history of PDXWildlife and why these studies matter to the larger picture of conservation. As this group is made up of wildlife biologists and conservationists, they had some very good questions.

We ended the day with some light office work and then caught the return bus to Ya’an. After getting cleaned up, we met some friends for some Sichuan Hot Pot at a nice restaurant. With mouths ablaze and our bellies full of swirling lava, we got back home around 9:00 pm and promptly passed out.

UPDATES- The Bifengxia nursery is now partially open for window viewing. Yay!

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Hello, I’m Nathan and I am the deputy director for PDXWildlife. I get the privilege of training incoming interns and being their guide for two weeks while in China. This allows me to meet some fascinating and bright, like-minded individuals. If you are interested in applying for an upcoming internship, our February 2018 breeding season position is still accepting applicants. Click HERE for more information.