Now onto the final area of the Ya’an Bifengxia Base, the Panda Kindergarten and Breeding Station! This area is between the smaller size of the White Bear Ground and the larger Overseas Panda Paradise and is a pretty good mid-point to a visit as it has toilets and a shop building where you can choose from a huge range of souvenirs but also pick up some small snacks (hello first panda ice cream of the trip!). Here there 4 large enclosures, 2 in each of 2 areas which are on either side of the main ‘square’ here. On each side you have a mother panda with cubs, then the other enclosure on each side had subadult twins. This is the perfect place to see pandas interacting together at all young ages – on my visit there were cubs born in 2021, 2022 and 2023 so you’re seeing all ages of young ones. Of course, the youngest of those were the most popular and you can see more about them in my next post. But first, see some of the other pandas:
An An 安安 and Ya Ya 雅雅
An An 安安 and Ya Ya 雅雅 are a male/female pair (not twins) born in 2019 so were almost 5 years old when I visited. To be honest I didn’t really see this pair very much, they were sitting right at the back of the enclosure enjoying their pile of bamboo! It was close to the peak of the sun of the day and there wasn’t much sun near the front of the enclosure so I can understand that they kept in the cooler area. This was definitely an interesting enclosure because the back wall was painted in an elaborate space/astronaut panda design – not what I thought I might see in a panda enclosure! It does certainly brighten up the place and definitely draws attention to this enclosure.
Shun Chang 顺畅 and Yi Lan 怡兰
The other pair of pandas in this area are 2021-born twins, Shun Chang 顺畅 and Yi Lan 怡兰 who were almost 3 years old at the time of my visit. These two lived in probably the most well-known enclosure at the base with the ‘Panda Kindergarten’ painting all along the back wall – this used to be where younger cubs lived, but now there are just 2 slightly older cubs here. Alike the last pair, I also didn’t see a lot of these two – when I walked up to the enclosure one of them was eating bamboo outside while the other was in the indoor enclosure. After 5 or 10 minutes the second one did come outside, the two were quite rough in their play with each other, lots of chasing each other around and tumbling on the ground (and it didn’t come after one stole the others bamboo which I’ve seen before!). They sounded quite vicious in their barks towards each other, but eventually did settle down.
Yan Hui 妍慧 + cubs
The last pandas to share about in this post are Yan Hui 妍慧 and her family. She is living with her 2022-born twins, female Xiao Bao 小宝 and male Pang Yuan 胖圆 who are almost 2 years old. The family was thoroughly enjoying a huge pile of bamboo and shoots on the flat plateau of their enclosure. The enclosure was quite hilly, with their indoor space at the bottom to the left of the below picture, then the paved plateau before the hill extended upwards. These twins looked pretty big for being under 2 years old, in fact at times it was a little difficult to tell who was mum and who was a baby! Or Yan Hui is a smaller female perhaps, she is still a young female. The interactions in this family were lovely, there were obviously a limited number of bamboo shoots in the pile, and when those started running low the tensions were raised and they started trying to steal them from each other! It was super cute, and of course, there was plenty more bamboo, just not the coveted shoots. These three were almost constantly right at the front of the enclosure at the viewing space for them, so it was a really good opportunity to see them up close.
