Dispatch from China: Tracking and playing with pandas (part 1 of 2)

by Jerry Guo on

On a single-lane dirt road wending between misty crags deep in Sichuan Province, traffic has slowed to a crawl. Hundreds of dump trucks and steamrollers are expanding the only road to Wolong Nature Reserve into a modern freeway. Conservation biologist George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City was the first Westerner to study giant pandas in China when he came to Wolong, about 500 kilometers southwest of Wanglang, in 1980.

Now, more than 100,000 tourists every year flock to Wolong, the country’s most famous panda reserve, to see its 120 captive-bred pandas, the largest such population in the world.

On a March afternoon, there are so many pandas in the “kindergarten pen” here that it’s hard to keep track of their antics. One is attempting a handstand while three others are playing king of the hill. These carefree cubs, a record 19 from Wolong’s breeding season, are part of the dramatic comeback for a symbol of conservation: the giant panda.
The toddlers may one day follow Xiangxiang, the first captive panda released into the wild in April 2006, as part of the campaign to prop up the wild population, estimated at 1,600 in 2001. China’s central government has increased the number of reserves from 13 a decade ago to 59 this year, with two to three coming online every year. The reserves cover 50% of the panda’s habitat and 75% of the population. The government has also banned logging of natural forests and started a “Grain for Green” campaign to encourage farmers to restore the native habitat.

Wolong will soon build a new captive breeding facility that can house 300 pandas, a goal that would ensure the survival of the captive population for 100 years and maintain 95% of its genetic diversity.

Almost two-thirds of captive panda births each year happen at Wolong, thanks to the reserve’s obsession with perfecting artificial insemination over the last 15 years and discovering in 2000 how to keep twins alive by removing one of them from the mother.

A decade ago, the captive birth of a single cub would cause a huge media sensation. Back then, if a mother bore twins, she would invariably abandon one and raise the other. In 2000, breeders figured out how to raise twins by allowing one cub at a time to stay with the mother and raising the other by hand. They frequently swap cubs so both learn survival lessons from mom. Now Wolong is trying to outdo last year’s record number of births by artificial insemination.

The reintroduction campaign took a serious hit recently when a rival male badly injured Xiangxiang. Because of his mild manners from a captive upbringing, he has been having a difficult time fitting in with the wild crowd. And earlier, rangers lost track of him when his GPS battery died.

The size of that population, it turns out, is a bit controversial. One Chinese research team recently published a study claiming the population might be double the estimate of 1998’s Third National Survey. Using DNA fingerprints collected from fresh feces, they were able to identify 66 individuals in a key reserve. The Third National Survey found just 27 in 1998.

If this controversial study turns out to be accurate, pandas would be off the international list of endangered species. But perhaps they’re not out of the woods–or shall we say bamboo forest–yet. Read part 2 tomorrow to find out why, as I go panda tracking with a Chinese guy named Chuckie.

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Dispatch from Sumatra’s nastiest swamp (part 1 of 2)

by Jerry Guo on


Forget for a moment the dreadful conditions in this miserable Sumatran swamp, which include being eaten by tigers (seven in the surrounding area last year). Just getting here is an ordeal in itself. Start by taking the 1,400-kilometer flight from the capital, Jakarta, to Sumatra‘s bustling northern port, Medan. Then it’s a grueling twelve-hour ride straight across the island’s dramatic mountains-and poorly maintained roads-to the Indian Ocean, where a puttering speedboat will be waiting to make the hour-long trip upriver.

If all goes well, you arrive at camp for the daily rationing of rice and canned mackerel. This is assuming you secured the four permits required for a visit to this hidden corner of Leuser National Park, a World Heritage Site.

Yet despite the remoteness or food or the fact the Suaq Balimbing field station is in the middle of a flooded swamp, the scientists here couldn’t be happier at their return. “We were all waiting for this place to reopen,” Andrea Gibson, a PhD candidate at University of Zurich who had to delay her orangutan fieldwork by three years because of the station’s hiatus, said to me.
There’s no question why so many researchers clamber to be here. The site rocketed to fame in the mid-1990s with the discovery of tool-use among orangutans, the only primate besides chimpanzees with such abilities; it remains the only location with widespread tool-use. Later work contributed to a landmark paper in Science that demonstrated the existence of orangutan culture. This modest patch of swamp, quite frankly, boasts some of the smartest apes in the world.

But an upsurge of violence from the long-running civil war at the end of the 1990s forced the Suaq primatologists, as well as wildlife researchers across Aceh, out of business. Only now, with a peace treaty in place, are they trickling back. Nowhere has the homecoming been more dramatic or anticipated than at Suaq Balimbing.

As the boat pulls into the dock-a rickety piece of plywood-the field station looms large, looking almost palatial against the backdrop of dense jungle foliage. But once on top of the riverbank, you realize the camp, which consists of three tiny rooms in two wooden shacks, is about to burst at the seams. Fifteen people, including three graduate students from Zurich, an Indonesian student, a cook, and several field assistants jostle for space alongside generators, laptops, food supplies, and an entire department store of wet field outfits hung out to dry.


None of this, however, was around a year ago, and with that in mind, Suaq’s transformation seems nothing short of miraculous. When the field staff evacuated in September 1999, hastened by the execution of the head assistant and violent skirmishes nearby, they left behind two sturdy buildings, one of which had six rooms. By the time they returned for a brief survey in 2006, everything had gone up in flames. “The rebels had been using our camp, so the military didn’t burn it down for nothing,” the camp’s principal investigator explained to me. Equally disheartening, the boardwalks used to traverse much of the 350-hectare swamp had rotted away.

After completely rebuilding the station last February, albeit on a smaller scale, the staff spent much of the summer blazing a new, 46-kilometer trail grid, an absolute necessity when tracking orangutans day in and out. They started collecting behavioral data last September.

The civil war’s impact on the Suaq jungle, on the other hand, was quite unexpected. When President Suharto fell from power in 1999, illegal loggers almost overran the station. “Then the civil war stemmed that,” explained Ian Singleton, a Medan-based orangutan researcher who oversees logistics at Suaq. “The illegal loggers and poachers didn’t want to risk being shot. So the civil war was extremely good for conservation.”

Continue to part 2.

A giant rat in front of your tent

by Jerry Guo on

So I’ve been following the discoveries coming out of New Guinea’s so-called “Lost World,” a patch of mountainous jungle in the Mamberamo Basin. It was only explored for the first time in 2005, when dozens of new plants and species were discovered. This time around, the research expedition–organized by Conservation International–found an almost 3 pound Mallomys giant rat five times the size of a regular rat. They’ve also found a pygmy possum, one of the smallest marsupials to date.

How’s this for an adventure story? Here’s how they found the rat, “With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip,” said one scientist with the Smithsonian. Apparently it also didn’t make that much of a ruckus when held (see picture). This region is definitely on the very top of my to-visit places. Here’s a salivating slideshow.

Better book those diving trips fast

by Jerry Guo on

This week’s issue of Science is devoted to coral reefs, specifically the dire condition they’re in and the dangers they face. Not sure if anyone else here reads the magazine as religiously as me (give me a shout-out if you do), but they do a great job in highlighting the fast-eroding plight of the world’s coral.

Did you know that global warming, disease, and humans have already destroyed 20% of the world’s coral reef? At the same time, coral generates $30 billion annually through tourism and fisheries. And it’s predicted that the rest of the reefs may collapse in two decades.

Indeed, coral is one of the most overlooked victims of climate change–polar bears are just more cuddly, what can I say. But I think they’re finally showing up on the international agenda. I’m still conflicted whether tourism will help preserve these wonderful underwater paradises. What do you guys think?

(The Science articles are behind a subscription wall)

NYT’s series on China

by Jerry Guo on

The New York Times has been running a series this year discussing China’s remarkable economic growth, and how that has impacted the country’s environment. The latest in this saga (we’re on part 6) is the under-reported tale of the last two soft-shell Yangtze River turtles in the world.

Having reported from the Yangtze River, I can tell you that the place is a mess. Having said that, I would urge you to visit the Three Gorges ASAP, since it’ll be flooded for the final time when the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009. By then, most of the dramatic sights will be hidden under water, forever.

Like most problems, China’s environmental mess can mostly be traced back to the country’s pervasive corruption. I think most officials recognize the importance of the problem. But there’s simply too many special interests and bureaucracy to really effect a change anytime soon. Just one more reason to visit the Yangtze today rather than tomorrow.