Volunteering with Pandas in China

In July 2014, I volunteered with pandas in China! I’d taken it upon myself to head to China to volunteer at Louguantai Wild Animal Breeding and Protection Centre, a beautiful panda sanctuary situated in the Shaanxi province.

During my time there, I was an assistant zookeeper to giant pandas; feeding and cleaning their enclosures, and also helping the keepers with their English. I chose to volunteer with pandas specifically because of their endangered status (only 1,600 remain in the wild and 300 in captivity) and I wanted to give something to panda awareness and conservation, as well as to get up close with these fascinating creatures.

How to volunteer with pandas

Most tourists seem to go to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base to volunteer with pandas. However, after doing some research, I found a company online called Real Gap, who had a fantastic-sounding volunteer programme on their website. The panda conservation project offered through Real Gap was close to Xi’an — a city that I was keen on visiting, so I decided to book it. While Real Gap no longer offers the programme I volunteered on, I’ve heard good things about the panda projects offered by GoEco.

The cost to volunteer with pandas isn’t cheap — I paid about £1,000 for my trip — but the value is completely worth it. It was easily one of the most interesting and enjoyable 2 weeks of my life.

Panda volunteering at Louguantai Wild Animal Breeding and Protection Centre

The panda volunteer programme I worked on was based at Louguantai Wild Animal Breeding and Protection Centre, a beautiful wildlife sanctuary situated just southwest of the city of Xi’an. So far, the sanctuary has rescued and rehabilitated more than 300 animals, and released over 100 back into the wild.

The sanctuary is sat inside The Louguantai National Forest Park — a very important site for Taoists, as it was here where the founder of Taoism, Laozi, wrote the yin and yang philosophy. A large statue of Laozi can be found in the forest, as well as many temples and stone tablets dedicated to him and his work. The park was stunning, with acres of lush greenery surrounding the temples — it’s easy to see why Louguantai got its name, as it translates to “the luckiest place on earth.” It was a gorgeous location to spend 2 weeks volunteering.

The whole experience was incredible. As well as caring for the pandas, we learned a lot about their behaviour and welfare, as well as the amazing conservation efforts that are being implemented.

I must spare a moment to mention Qizai — the only brown and white panda in captivity. I didn’t even know they existed before coming here, and apparently, only 4 or 5 have ever been spotted. He’s certainly special, and I can’t quite believe I got to be his keeper for two weeks!

A typical day in the life of a panda volunteer programme

Morning chores

Every morning, we would meet at the panda enclosure at 8 am to give them their morning feed and clean them out. This was done by moving the pandas to a closed-off area by luring them there with bamboo while we scooped out their poo, hosed down the floors and placed bamboo on a raised platform for them. They were fed copious amounts of bamboo, as well as carrot, apple and “panda cake” which was packed full of fibrous foods.

We learned that pandas will only eat fresh bamboo, so it has to be changed regularly as they won’t eat it once it’s dried out. The bamboo is stored by being kept upright and sprayed with water periodically to keep it moist. The centre had 6 adult resident pandas while I was there, although they owned others who were away at other zoos on breeding programmes. This meant we had 6 pandas to clean out every morning, which didn’t take too long as there were 4-5 of us doing this.

Afternoon tasks

After completing our morning chores, we had some free time to do what we pleased. We were usually quite tired and just wandered around the centre watching the animals or went back to the hostel to play card games and chat. Lunch was at 12 pm, and the resident chef always cooked us delicious meals — seriously the best egg fried rice I’ve ever had in my life.

After lunch, we would give the pandas their afternoon feed (more bamboo, fruits and panda cake) by holding it through the bars and letting them take it from our hands. They would snatch it and then sit on their bums to eat it. After the pandas were fed, we would help with any chores that needed doing, such as de-weeding the outside enclosures, cleaning the windows or providing enrichment for other animals at the centre.

One of our afternoon tasks included helping one of the keepers feed the red pandas, which was incredible as we were allowed to sit in their enclosure and feed them raisins. I had expected them to be quite timid creatures but they were very inquisitive and climbed all over us — definitely a highlight of my trip.

Evening activities

At around 5 pm, we were finished for the day, so we would have dinner and then enjoy some free time. Our supervisors Robyn and Leo often organised things for us to do, such as hiking in the national forest, visiting temples or teaching English to children. I have to thank them for organising and taking us to these places, as it made my time on the project even more memorable.

One evening, a fellow volunteer named Frank who lived in the area was very kind and took us to explore a local water town with his mother.

All in all, I had an incredible two weeks volunteering with pandas, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I learned so much about pandas and the efforts to conserve them, and I highly recommend everyone do a panda volunteering project!

The Louguantai Wild Animal Breeding and Protection Centre do not have an online donations page, so instead, I’ll leave you with the one for World Wildlife Fund if you want to donate to help support giant pandas.

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