China’s giant pandas at Chengdu base will take Mondays off from tourists starting Christmas Day
- ‘Baby giant panda villa’ to be shut every Monday from December 25, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding announces on its website
- Crowd control measure, the second announced within days, aims to protect health and well-being of the vulnerable animals, centre managers say
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“Starting on December 25, the baby giant panda villa, which has a high number of visitors, will be closed every Monday,” the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding said on its website on Friday. “It will not be open to tourists, please plan your tour accordingly.”
The decision to close the popular enclosure for a day was aimed at better safeguarding the health and welfare of the once endangered animals, the centre’s managers said.
A previous announcement on Monday said the centre would no longer sell tickets through travel agencies. From January 1, tickets can only be reserved through official channels – such as the centre’s website or its WeChat social media account.
The tighter controls are in response to the huge popularity of giant pandas and the high numbers of visitors the base receives each year.
The giant panda is the rarest member of the bear family and among the world’s most threatened animals, according to the WWF, which has the animal as its logo.
Set up in 1987 in the capital of Sichuan province, the Chengdu base focuses on rescue, research and breeding of the species.
It is billed by tourist websites as the top attraction in Chengdu, with the large fluffy animals’ resemblance to giant soft toys helping to draw crowds, especially children.
The base houses more than 230 giant pandas over a 3 sq km (1.16 square mile) area.
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Some of the giant pandas have even become celebrities. He Hua, a female panda born in 2020, became a crowd favourite for her unhurried movements and gentle temperament. Nicknamed Huahua, her emoji went viral online and people shared her every move on social media.
“One day, I felt especially sad, but then I saw her eating bamboo quietly and she cured me,” one commenter posted on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform.
People would line up outside the panda enclosure to see her, to call out to her by her pet name. Some would even stand on stools or climb trees to get a glimpse of her.
According to Guangming Daily, the centre had 392,000 visitors during the eight-day national holiday in October.
In March, in response to repeated questions about overcrowding, the Sichuan government said the base would implement policies to reduce tourist traffic and increase security.
Their immense popularity even spurs irresponsible behaviour. In August, two tourists were banned for life from the base after they fed bamboo shoots and peanuts to one of the bears.
Visitors are told not to feed the animals without permission, throw water at them, or tap on the glass enclosures.
Using camera flash or smoking are also prohibited as this may scare the animals or damage their health.
In July, two men were banned from entering the base for five years after one of them spat water at a panda and the other struck the enclosure glass, state media reported. In April, a woman threw water at a giant panda, upsetting the animal. She was banned from visiting the base for a year.
In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the status of giant pandas from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its Red List because of a population rebound in China. There are more than 1,800 pandas in the wild, according to official Chinese figures.
