'It's a Pandaful Life!' - Documentary Research

It's a Pandaful Life is a short documentary which shows how China is saving the Giant Panda from extinction. The Panda is China’s national treasure, the documentary tells us how the people who work at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center are trained to do everything within their reach to save them. 

The workers at the breeding are highly qualified professionals in fields such as veterinary, paramedical services, animal breeding, livestock engineering or any other related area of expertise. 'All their effort has paid off, and in 2016 pandas were taken off the endangered species list although they continue to be vulnerable. Many decades will go by before pandas born in captivity are able to mate with wild pandas. That is the ultimate goal.'

I made notes whilst watching the documentary that I found useful and interesting:

• Mother pandas can only raise one child at a time but usually give birth to two. But if two must are born then two must survive, every year China makes up for this mistake in nature through taking care of the rejected cub themselves. Both must survive.

• The panda is China’s national treasure. The colour of the panda relates to the Yin and Yang symbol

• Pandas have similar feelings and emotions to humans

• Panda breeding centre in China- if they are strong enough and ready they are then realised into the wild.

• Panda ancestors were carnivores about 2 million years ago, scientists say they stopped eating meat and instead started eating bamboo because their taste receptor gene mutated, meaning they didn’t find meat tasty anymore.

• Took the breading centre 50 years to increase the number of giant pandas by 23. Natural mating and artificial insemination.

• They’ve been evolving for 8 millions years

• They’re very vulnerable to climate change and temperature change so to some it seems quite premature to take them off the endangered list.