Introducing the second area of the Ya’an Bifengxia Giant Panda Base, the Overseas Panda Paradise! While a number of the pandas living here were born overseas, there are some who weren’t, nevertheless, this is the biggest area of the base with many pandas to see. This is also the furthest away area, we took the bus to get here – it’s a long walk and you don’t want to waste any time when you could be seeing pandas instead of walking! There are three different sections to this area, the main large one with five enclosures, a smaller one with three enclosures (although only two were viewable), and a second with three enclosures of which I found two to be more tricky to view (and was also the trickiest to get to, it was a bit of a walk and a lot of stairs). Read on below for part 1 of the pandas living in the Overseas Panda Paradise:
Mei Sheng 美生
The first panda to share from this area is Mei Sheng (美生) – he was born in 2003 at San Diego Zoo, their second cub to be born to Bai Yun (but her first cub with male Gao Gao). He moved back to China in 2007. He is the same age as Yang Guang and Tian Tian, so is now enjoying his older years in the peaceful Ya’an Bifengxia Base. His enclosure is next to Bei Bei (more on him soon!) and is near where the main bus stop is for the Overseas Panda Paradise area. The viewing area for him is quite small, but the overall enclosure is large with slopes at either side and you view in the ‘dip’ in the middle. I saw him at two different times on my visit, first thing in the morning he came out from inside and settled for an early nap on a landing in the stairs, but later in the afternoon he was enjoying bamboo under the shade of a wooden structure right in front of the view point.
Bai Feng 白峰
Bai Feng (白峰) also lives in the Overseas Panda Paradise, although was not born overseas but at the Wolong Base. However from some scouring of the internet I believe he may be the son of Tai Shan – who was the first cub born to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian (m) at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC. So he does have a connection outside of China. He was born in 2020 so is still a young male at almost 4 years old (funnily enough he has the same birthday as Mei Sheng above^), and according to the internet, he has a twin sister! Anyway, this enclosure is quite large, however a lot of the wooded part up the hill to the right was very dense, and much of it not at a viewing point along a path for the public, so he has plenty of space to roam and stay pretty hidden. The lower part of the enclosure was where I saw him, he has a flat section where his indoor area is, then there are steps leading down to more of a trough and also a water fountain.
Yun Duo 云朵 + cubs
Next up are Yun Duo (云朵) with three cubs – Meng Xun (梦寻, female), Ao Bao (奥宝 , male) and Yuan Fu (缘福, male). Meng Xun and Ao Bao are Yun Duo‘s twins whilst she is a ‘surrogate’ mum to Yuan Fu. On Youtube there are several videos of Yun Duo as a cub which is super special to have, and there are quite a few recent videos of all 4 of these pandas on Weibo, they’re such a cute family^ These cubs were born in 2022 so are still under 2 years old, really a great age to see young ones at. I’ve had a good look online to see why this family might be in the Overseas area, I couldn’t find any info on the cubs’ fathers, so perhaps he/they are returned pandas?! It does seem that until towards the end of 2023, the family were at the Shenshuping Base. These guys had a pretty large enclosure, which was quite exposed in some areas near the front – there wasn’t a lot of shade in the afternoon compared with their neighbour’s (Bai Feng) enclosure, but there were some trees and also the standard shaded platform near the front (which had shade both elevated from the ground and on the ground itself). The indoor building is at the back of the enclosure at the top of a slope, then the area slopes down. From the viewing platform, you’re at the top of the ‘dip’ at a similar elevation to the highest point of the enclosure, so you’re looking down into the space. [P.s. all of these cubs are available for adoption on the Pandas International website.]
