Panda ears in front of Su Shan!

We’re wrapping up our first week working at Bifengxia as PDXWildlife Giant Panda Intern and I am totally starstruck by the cuteness and personality of the Bifengxia pandas! Right now it’s the calm before the storm of the breeding season. We’ve been taking advantage of the lull to practice observing the pandas and using ethograms to collect behavioral data. This video is a fun little peak into what a day in the life of a PDX Wildlife Winter Intern looks like!

https://youtu.be/H8Hgq2y4L-w

• It’s 6:30am and our rooster neighbors across the street dutifully serve as our alarm clocks – Good morning!
• At 7:30 it’s time to head to the bus stop. On the way we pick up our favorite breakfast item, baozi (bow-zuh), a steamed bread stuffed with pork or veggies. The bus scoops up us along with other Bifengxia workers and we climb our way up the mountain towards the Bifengxia base.
• As soon as we arrive it’s time to run to the breeding center to fit in behavioral observations (the main focus of a giant panda intern) before the keepers do morning cleaning and feeding! Every day we have to be aware of every panda’s location and hormone levels so we can plan our observations accordingly. The Breeding Center is not open to the public and is where the majority of our observations will take place. Here is where the pandas that are ready to mate are kept along with mothers still caring for cubs. In the parts of the base open to the public you can find shuttles driving around tourists, restaurants, and all the panda merchandise you could want.
• Lunch time is full of microwavable noodles, entering data, and possibly some cat naps.
• After lunch it’s time for more observations! As the breeding season picks up this will get much more hectic.
• Finally we catch the bus back to Ya’an around 4:30. What a day!

-Nicki