The Last Refuge: One Woman's Glimpse of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Page #2

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"For nine years in Qin Ling

Lu Zhi and I have lived

among giant pandas

We drink water from the

same small stream with them

and we have stayed together

with them almost everyday

They are familiar

with our scent

These pandas

know us very well

Lone pandas are

often very tolerant

But will a mother be so trusting if they

attempt to visit the

newborn inside the den?

Hoping to conduct a thorough

examination of the panda cub

Professor Pan and Lu Zhi

approach while the mother

feeds some distance

away from the new den.

She has stayed away

so long they now fear the cub

may be dead erasing

a scientific opportunity

and another life in a lineage

where each has become precious

Their fears prove unfounded

Pan knows his time to inspect

the cub is limited

Too long in the den and

despite their efforts to

gain her acceptance

the mother could react violently to

their presence here and attack them

They usually observe

from a distance

but they must sometimes

examine the infant

panda closely to document its growth

It's a female...

an advantage for science

In the years to come

she may bear cubs of her own

permitting study of

a panda family across generations

At seven weeks

the baby weighs more than three pounds

Her eyes are

opening on the world

Her expanding repertoire of

sounds could alarm her mother

still browsing nearby

Pan is heartened by what he finds

the cub appears normal and fit

with a stomach full of mother's milk

and a strong heartbeat

Time is up

The baby must be returned quickly

to avoid a confrontation

In the weeks to come

Pan and Lu Zhi make

an important observation

When her cub is weeks old

a wild mother leaves it to

feed for hours at a time

In the past

this natural behavior was

often though abandonment

and many cubs were

taken from their mothers

only to die later in human care

This all began with a boyhood dream

of adventure in

a far away exotic land...

"When I was in high school

I read Jack London's books

Among the books,

two greatly impressed me

"White Fang"

and "The Call of the Wild"

Form then on

I dreamed of living in remote areas like

western America or Alaska

or the Yukon River Valley...

Living in the wild

and among wild animals...

that was my early dream

and I hoped to make it my future

The years have turned early

fascination to enduring devotion

Pan spends months of each year

in primitive conditions

paying some research expenses

out of his own pocket

working late hours

to log and analyze data

in a tiny cubicle that

is both office and bedroom

Pan's other world offers

a stark contrast

The rest of the year

he spends in Beijing

sprawling symbol of

modern industrial China

Here Pan is a biology professor

at Beijing University

His work was mainly

in the laboratory until he

and the panda had their

first fateful encounter

"Um, after graduating

from college

when I was 25years old,

I had the opportunity to

um, to go visit

um, the Beijing Zoo

where they had the first

captive-born baby panda

And that was the first time

that I was able to hold a panda

and it was very interesting

The baby panda

climbed all over me

and that was when

I decided I wanted to

devote my whole

life to studying the pandas"

At a zoo in the ancient capital

city of Xi'an

a visit to a friend...

Her name is Dan-Dan...

a reference to her reddish-brown

and-white coloration

She is one of only three

such pandas they know of

Pan and Lu Zhi think

this color scheme may be

a throwback to prehistoric times

Pandas may have developed their black

and-white coloration

as camouflage during the ice ages

Finding Dan-Dan ill

in the wild

Pan and Lu Zhi brought her

here for temporary care

hoping she would be

released later

Her confinement

disturbed Pan

who was himself

held prisoner in the late

Sixties during the Cultural Revolution

"The Cultural Revolution

was a big mess

No one dared to

speak the truth

Because I told the truth

they put me in jail

beat me and pulled my hair

I thought:

the only thing I can do

is to insist

on seeking the truth..."

After 56 days of beatings and

confinement in darkness, Pan escaped

"Overcoming this

suffering has become the

basis for my conviction as

a scientist always to tell the truth"

In a Beijing classroom

Pan carries his campaign on behalf of

pandas to a

wildly receptive audience

Using props made from the skins

of pandas who died in captivity

Pan teaches about the

need to protect wild pandas

His stories evoke surprise

The children thought pandas

lived only in zoos

Pan wants to inspire understanding

of wild pandas in the generation

that will probably

decide their fate

In a country to nearly

with urgent human needs

he faces a long road

Even some friends cannot understand

why he leaves his home

and family several times a year

for the sake of a wild animal

the trip south to the Qin Ling mountains

is itself a test of resolve

then 14 hours by bus

For Pan, this journey retraces

the ancient retreat

the panda before advancing waves of human settlements

The last stands of wilderness

like the last pandas

survive only where food crops cannot...

at the highest edges of existence

For years, Professor Pan

and Lu Zhi conducted a lonely enterprise

But they have now attracted

a following of students

who staff the Qin Ling research

station in seasonal shifts

To Pan, they hold promise that the

panda will not be forgotten

And they have been

staunch companions in

an adventure that has

sometimes been an ordeal

"There were many difficulties

when we started this research

We always felt cold

and clothes were always wet

Lu Zhi got frostbite

on her face

and Ding Qian had

frostbitten fingers

Mid-December

Four months

have passed since the

birthing season

among Qin Ling pandas

Cubs are now old enough to

crawl from their dens

and are sometimes

found outside

while their mothers

browse nearby

Face to face with humans,

the cub seems by turns

reticent and full of bravado

To symbolize her importance

for the future of pandas

the two researchers have decided to

name her Xi Wang-meaning "Hope"

The christening

is of no interest to a baby

who may sleep 20 hours a day

even when guests are present

Easy slumber

is a panda trait

Nearby, her mother unwinds from

the labors of eating bamboo

Xi Wang seems vulnerable

But animal predators pose

less of a threat than humans

A panda pelt can bring poachers

more than $10,000

and dozens of panda cubs have

been taken into captivity

by well meaning

"rescuers" who believed

or wanted to believe

that they had been abandoned.

Xi Wang is still nursing

so bamboo

which will dominate her life

is for now just a plaything

A surprise...

The mother returns

and decides to move

Xi Wang to a new den

a routine occurrence

But for Pan and Lu Zhi

it's a rare moment

Despite years of observation

they have seldom seen two pandas

even mother and young

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