Wolong National Nature Reserve


Wolong National Nature Reserve, also known as Wolong Special Administrative Region, is a protected area located in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China. Established in 1963 with an initial size of about 20,000 hectares, the reserve was further expanded in 1975, covering an area of about 200,000 hectares in the Qionglai Mountains region. There are over 4,000 different species recorded in the reserve. According to China's Third National Giant Panda Survey, Wolong National Nature Reserve houses about 150 wild individuals of highly endangered giant pandas. The reserve is also a home to many other endangered species including: snow leopards, red pandas, golden monkeys, white-lipped deer and many precious plants. Before the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake Wolong got up to 200,000 visitors every year. Its area is superseded by the Wolong Special Administrative Region.

Background

In June 1980, the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda was established at Wolong with the efforts of both World Wildlife Fund and the Chinese government. To this date, researchers have conducted many breeding research projects on giant pandas and have successfully bred 66 panda cubs.

Location

A mountain stream runs through the Wolong Valley ; the stream is heavily armoured with boulders and smaller rounded stones. Stream waters are rather alkaline with pH levels in the range of 8.91. Water quality turbidity is quite high due to extensive sand and gravel mining in stream.
According to a 2001 research by Dr. Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University, the rate of destruction is higher after the reserve's creation than before its creation. Using NASA's satellite images and records of population, Liu's research team concluded that due to tourism and the increase in local population, the reserve is facing an unprecedented threat. "Tourists don't think they have an impact on panda habitat, but indirectly each visitor has some impact," Liu said. "We don't see ourselves as a destructive force, but we are."

Fauna

The giant panda is the most famous species of the reserve. Other typical larger Carnivora are the Ussuri dhole, Asian black bear, Asiatic golden cat, red panda, hog badger and yellow-throated marten. Hooved mammals are represented by Sichuan takins, wild boar, musk deer, mainland serows, Chinese gorals, tufted deer and sambar deer. Other noticeable mammals include golden snub-nosed monkeys, Tibetan macaques, complex-toothed flying squirrels, bamboo rats, and porcupines. Because the reserve comprises different altitudes, it includes tropical and temperate climate zones and harbors species typically for the tropics, like clouded leopards and sambar deer as well as species from temperate regions, like white-lipped deer, snow leopards and Turkestan lynxes.
Camera-trap surveys conducted in the reserve area between 2005 and 2009 did not record any leopard.

2008 earthquake

The region, including the Panda Research Center, was largely devastated by the catastrophic May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake, though the captive giant pandas were initially reported to be safe. Immediately after the quake, officials were unable to contact the reserve. PRC's Foreign Ministry later said that a group of 31 British tourists visiting the Wolong panda reserve in the quake-hit area returned safe and uninjured to the provincial capital. The well-being of an even greater number of pandas in the neighbouring panda reserves initially remained unknown. Five security guards at the reserve were killed by the earthquake. Six pandas escaped after their enclosures were damaged. By May 20, two pandas at the reserve were found to be injured, while the search continued for another two adult pandas that went missing after the quake. By May 28, 2008, one panda was still missing, nine-year-old Mao Mao, a mother of five at the breeding centre. She was discovered on Monday, June 9, her body crushed by a wall in her enclosure. Panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and buried her outside the breeding centre.
For the time being the giant pandas have been relocated to the Bifengxia Panda Base, which is also managed by the China Panda Protection and Research Center.