Ya’an Bifengxia Base

June 2, 2025May 31, 2025 Kirsten

Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base pt.2 – White Bear Ground ~ Si Xue + cub, Jia Bai + Jia Yang, Fu Tao + Fu Lin

So I will admit, that spending a lot of time waiting and watching Bao Di and Bao Mei, it didn’t leave a lot of time for seeing all the other pandas at the base, so the rest of the pandas living in the White Bear Ground were a little neglected with my time – however these guys are in a prime position by being on the main path in and out of the base, so everyone has to go past at least twice! This is a prime viewing spot for the Summer months because there is a long covered viewing walkway with seats as well, perfect for keeping in the shade. There are 4 yards here, I saw pandas in them all, but only very briefly saw De Rui so only had one photo, but I did get a few of the other pandas living here – across the 4 yards there were 7 pandas in total here.

May 30, 2025May 29, 2025 Kirsten

Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base pt.1 – Belgian-born Bao Di + Bao Mei

With the knowledge that the Belgian-born cubs were living at Bifengxia after moving back to China in December 2024, I was pretty set on adding the Bifengxia Base into my plan. Now this could have ended like my trip last year (to see Yang Guang and Tian Tian, who were taken off show shortly before I got there), but I really wanted to give it a try – and that paid off! The trio were living in the White Bear Ground area in the yards typically used for quarantining, each in their own yards – the twins were separated as they have reached an age where this would typically happen anyway. Sadly I didn’t see oldest ‘cub’ (for he’s now 8 years old!) Tian Bao 天宝, the door in his house was always closed and I didn’t see him in the yard at all, and there was no bamboo out, hinting that he wasn’t going to be out that day. Luckily after a lot of waiting and patience, Bao Di 宝弟 and Bao Mei 宝妹 both came outside and really made my day.

I’ve seen these two twice before, once when they were tiny babies in January 2020 and again in October 2022 when they were quite big cubbies^

March 3, 2025January 12, 2025 Kirsten

The 5 PANDA BASES in Sichuan Province – a summary on visiting + what’s next when you’ve seen it all!

I can finally tick off the list seeing all of the Panda bases in Sichuan Province, or more specifically in the Chengdu area! When I had the dream of seeing all the bases, I don’t think I intended to see them all on one trip, but that somehow managed to happen (although I’ve seen some on multiple previous trips too) – and I think it was completely worth it. When I was first looking up about seeing pandas in China, and even on more recent trips, I could never really find one resource that covered all of the bases – or even where they all were, especially somewhere that wasn’t a tour company. So hopefully this is something I can contribute to with this post summarising all 5 of the main giant panda bases in Sichuan Province that you can reach from Chengdu – covering the pros and cons of each, perhaps helping you figure out what might be the best option for what you want to see of pandas!

August 19, 2024July 28, 2024 Kirsten

Ran Ran + twins @ Ya’an Bifengxia Base, May 2024 (Panda Kindergarten and Breeding Station pt.2)

The final pandas to share about both within the Panda Kindergarten but also at the Ya’an Bifengxia Base 碧峰峡大熊猫基地! It’s Ran Ran 冉冉, a 7-year old female with twins who were just 9 months old when I saw them. The twins are a male/female pair and are still awaiting their names so are just listed as Ran Ran-1 and -2! They are neighbours to An An and Ya Ya who are in the space/astronaut panda enclosure, the indoor house is at the back up the hill, there is space up the side of the house where there is a water fountain, as well with a flat area in the middle and a large rocky structure which was very well shaded and the pandas spent almost all of their time there. Then the enclosure dips down with a flat area at the front and some more climbing structures. At the time of my visit, it was quite sunny at the front while more shaded in the middle and at the back – luckily there are two viewing spaces at this enclosure, one at the front and another up the side, so it was really easy to see the pandas in this enclosure. The cubs were mobile and were quite stable on their feet, even climbing over obstacles and climbing up the rock structure to get to (and annoy) mum, this really is a fantastic age to see them at =) One cub was very active and was walking around all over the place at the back of the enclosure, exploring the fountain and around the grass before heading up onto the rocks to climb on mum. The other cub started on the rocks with mum, then climbed down and back up, then down and back up again before settling for a snooze in the shade. Up on the rocks there was some cub-cub interaction, but mostly one wanted to sleep and the other wanted some attention! Really such a cute family to witness^

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