Despite China’s impressive focus on this principal national treasure, the giant panda’s existence is still precarious in the wild. Finally recognised as a bear in 1985, as the long running taxonomic debate was finally settled, the giant panda is still pretty much impossible to see in the wild – the pandas and the authorities conspiring against you.
But with a research & breeding programme from multiple centres in the narrow band of mountains where pandas live numbers are rising; from approximately 1,100 pandas in the wild in the 1980s to an estimated 1,900 in 2024; moving from endangered to vulnerable – that’s progress.
I spent a lot of time researching and searching but for a quick fix try the catchily named Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding – I promise you’ll see more than one.
