This natural secret is called "the original appearance of the world"

Hello everyone, I am Chen Shiying, a nature conservation worker in the Tangjiahe area of ​​the Giant Panda National Park. I am very happy to meet with so many friends who love nature and animals in Nanjing and Hongshan to talk about nature. Imagine that you hold a ticket to the natural world, and I am the guide who takes you through the fantasy forest.

Today, let us explore the area known as "one of the areas with the highest encounter rate of rare wild animals in China's low-altitude forest ecosystem" and "what the world originally looked like": Tangjiahe Giant Panda National Park .

When the first rays of sunlight penetrate the treetops and shine on the lazy giant pandas, they roll around or shuttle through the bamboo forests to find food, muntjacs jump in the forest, Tibetan macaques jump lightly, takins graze in groups on the hillside, and golden pheasants comb their feathers. These scenes sound so pleasant! Life lives poetically and sings freely here.

All of this happens in the magical land of Tangjiahe, where in addition to rare wild animals and plants, the blooming of spring flowers, the coolness of midsummer, the romance of autumn leaves, and the passion of winter snow also decorate the whole year.

Overview of Tangjiahe Resources

The Tangjiahe section of the Giant Panda National Park is located in Qingchuan County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province . It is a forest and wildlife nature reserve with a total area of ​​40,000 hectares, with giant pandas and their habitats as the main protection objects. On September 30, 2021, the State Council approved the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park. As a vital corridor connecting the giant panda population in the northern part of the Minshan Mountain Range, Tangjiahe officially changed its role from a reserve to a giant panda national park .

Tangjiahe has a forest coverage rate of 96.15%, rich in biological resources, with more than 3,700 species of animals and plants. It is the home of 24 national first-class protected animals such as giant pandas, Sichuan golden monkeys, Sichuan takins, and green-tailed pheasants, and three national first-class protected plants such as ginkgo, Davidia involucrata, and yew. It has the Yinping Ancient Road of the Three Kingdoms, the Red Army Battle Site, and many native landscapes. It has been designated as an A-level nature reserve by the World Wildlife Fund and is also one of the hot spots for global biodiversity conservation; it is known as the "natural gene bank", "life home", and the "green pearl" of the Minshan Mountain Range. In 2014, it was selected into the World Conservation Union (IUCN)'s first batch of global best managed protected areas green list.

As builders of the Giant Panda National Park, we actively participate in the work of resource protection, ecological sample line monitoring, wildlife epidemic source and disease monitoring, forestry pest control, cross-regional joint defense, forest fire prevention, and anti-poaching responsibilities and missions.

These workloads may sound brief, but they require the conservation workers in Tangjiahe to actively participate in daily patrols, and to persevere and work hard year after year and day after day . Conservation workers have to wade through rivers, climb mountains, and pass through dense forests. They have to sleep in the open air, travel through mountains and rivers, stay away from cities, and spend more time together than together. This daily routine is also a true portrayal of the guardians of the flora and fauna in Tangjiahe.

I think, apart from the awe and love for nature, the reason why everyone is so happy to settle down in the mountains is our "umbrella species" - the giant panda.

I'm sure everyone knows that giant pandas are national treasures and are rare. But many people don't know that in history, giant pandas were once widely distributed, and even giant panda fossils have been unearthed in Beijing. But now, giant pandas are mainly distributed in some mountain ranges in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. Most people who have seen giant pandas have probably only seen them in zoos among the crowds. So, what kind of existence are giant pandas in the wild ?

The giant panda is round and black and white in the animal world. Because it loves to eat bamboo, it is also known as the "bamboo bear". Scientists have discovered that the giant panda actually relies on the protein in bamboo for energy. It can be said that it eats the meat of grass. When the giant panda eats bamboo, it basically eats with its head down and sleeps when it is full. Sometimes it only moves four or five hundred meters a day. Because it is too lazy? Actually not. This is a survival strategy . Because the nutrition of bamboo is too low, the giant panda reduces its metabolic level in order to avoid unnecessary activities. The giant panda likes to take a nap. It will habitually close its eyes for a while around 12 to 1:30 in the afternoon.

Our staff generally use two common methods to monitor giant pandas in the wild. One is to use the " bite-node differentiation method " to assist in the study of giant pandas. After eating bamboo, giant pandas will directly excrete the indigestible bamboo stems. Based on the depth and width of the bite marks left on these bamboo stems , researchers can determine whether they were bitten by the same giant panda and then estimate the number of giant pandas . This method is called the "bite-node differentiation method." However, giant pandas only eat bamboo leaves in some seasons, so they will not leave "bite nodes" in their feces, so the "bite-node differentiation method" also has shortcomings.

Another method of giant panda monitoring is the DNA detection method that we are more commonly using now. This method extracts DNA from the panda feces collected by rangers in the wild. Since different giant pandas rarely have the same DNA, this method can basically determine and deduce a more accurate number of giant pandas.

In recent years, Tangjiahe has actively carried out research on giant panda population dynamics and investigations on giant panda breeding behavior in the wild. For three consecutive years, giant pandas have been photographed in the wild in estrus and courtship. The courtship period of pandas in Tangjiahe is generally from March to mid-April each year, which is also the time period with the highest probability of observing wild giant pandas. According to the latest monitoring results, Tangjiahe has collected information on 54 giant pandas so far.

The following pictures may look like copy and paste at first glance, but they actually contain a certain amount of information. One of the pictures was taken in 2024; the other two were taken on March 27 and March 28, 2023. This is the same tree, which is also the "matchmaking tree" of giant pandas. Our researchers will continue to analyze and study the ecological environment and regional characteristics of this area.

Tangjiahe Nature Education

In recent years, Tangjiahe's nature education has shown a booming development trend, and has established a national research and practice education base for primary and secondary school students , a national youth nature education green camp , a Giant Panda National Park nature education base , and a Sichuan provincial science popularization base .

We have conducted popular science education on the 292 species of animals here, and updated and improved the hardware facilities of more than 10 venues. We have established a popular science infrastructure system with the Natural Science Education Center as the hub, the Natural History Museum as the core, five popular science museums, five plant science observation halls complementing each other, and seven natural science interpretation trails as extensions.

Tangjiahe actively transforms scientific research results into popular science works , and has produced more than 10 popular science films such as "Sichuan Golden Monkey" and "Sichuan Antelope"; combined with Tangjiahe's rich biodiversity, it has published "The Original Appearance of the World - Tangjiahe Bird and Animal Stories", and relying on high-quality popular science resources, it continues to enrich popular science courses, and has developed a total of 26 popular science courses such as wild animal and plant identification and infrared camera installation , so that more people, especially young people, have fallen in love with nature conservation.

Up to now, Tangjiahe has carried out more than 100 themed science popularization activities in conjunction with theme days such as "National Science Popularization Day" and "Nature Education Week", reaching an audience of 100,000 people.

I would like to plant a small seed for friends who love nature today. If you want to explore and practice more in the field of nature conservation in the future, the Giant Panda National Park Tangjiahe welcomes you. In addition to the gradually colored mountains and forests, the Wildlife Encounter Index will also usher in the best viewing season of the year.

Here, we sincerely invite friends here, friends who like Tangjiahe, and friends who like nature to visit Tangjiahe in person, feel the beautiful scenery, the changing seasons, and have an unexpected encounter with the mountain elves!