Do you love pandas? Keen to make a hands on impact on conservation efforts? Find volunteering opportunities with pandas! There are opportunities in places like the forests and mountains of southwest China, whilst zoos and wildlife parks around the world also offer volunteer placements, internships and jobs.
Volunteer with Pandas in China
China had always been at the top of Lisa from the UK travel wishlist, so she was incredibly happy when she got the opportunity to visit the Bifengxia Panda Base, based in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province in the southwest of China.
Here she shares her experience helping these magnificent animals and what you can expect.
I imagined ancient temples cloaked in mist, crowds of people pushing and shoving their way to wherever it was they needed to be, and delicious steaming food, in all shapes, sizes and crazy varieties. I wasn’t wrong. To spend time volunteering in China is an eye opening, thrilling, and pretty exhausting experience, that resonates as one of those ultimate travelling adventures.
My journey to the Bifengxia was long, and after an internal flight and 10 hours spent navigating the winding roads in a minibus, I finally made it to the base, neatly tucked away in the pandas’ natural habitat of the densely green, nature rich forests of Chengdu.
Nothing could prepare me for the emotions I felt of seeing the the pandas up close, I wasn’t expecting it, but for some reason I found myself welling up. They are so endangered, so expressive, and more than anything, so blooming cute! It’s not hard to see why we have this enormous fondness of them.
Over the next few days, under the watchful eyes of the bear’s full time carers, I spent my time mixing and weighing out their food then delivering it to their pens. A typical Panda meal consisted of apples, carrots and a weird cake type concoction made up of wheat, eggs, corn, vegetables, bamboo and bamboo shoots.
They live in an area specifically designed to keep them in their natural habitat, so they feel relaxed and at home. They need to be fed five times a day, but they also get given a constant supply of bamboo to chomp on throughout the day too.
I spent a lot of my time feeding and clearing out the Panda enclosures as I volunteered at Bifengxia. The workers there really care about the animals, and they really want to help in the efforts to save them, it’s not just a job to them, you can really feel that, and it’s great to be a part of it, and help in any way you can.
A large part of helping at the base involved cleaning out the pandas. They we’re persuaded into their sleeping quarters with the promise of lots of fresh bamboo and we got to work sweeping up a lot of poo, and clearing out the remains of the old bamboo and replenishing with new.
On my last day I joined a group who were able to spend some time with some of the younger pandas. After slipping into our protective clothing, to make sure we didn’t pass on any germs, we spent about 20 minutes feeding and smoothing them.
I’ll be honest, it was hard to leave after my volunteer trip. After being so far up in the cloud skimming hills, and having been so close, and so consumed with affection for these magnificent animals, you simply feel like you don’t want to return to reality. I wanted to stay, to help more, to see their playful faces during their early morning feed, and this is the very reason why I decided to spend my gap year in Asia helping.
If volunteering at the Bifengxia Panda Base sounds like something that would interest you take a look at these animal volunteering programs.
