The penultimate pandas to share about in the Pan Pan Garden 盼盼园 area of the Dujiangyan Panda Base are Zhang Ka 张卡 and her twins, male An Bao 安宝 and female Zhong Zhong 中中. Zhang Ka was born in 2000 so is now 24 years old, it’s likely that these cubs, born in 2022 so almost 2 years old at the time of my visit, will be her last cubs. Zhang Ka has quite a history – she is a wild-born panda who was brought into captivity and has had a huge success in the breeding programme having had many cubs. In 2011 she was involved in being successfully bred and raising a cub in a semi-wild enclosure. This resulted in that cub, a female named Zhang Xiang 张想, to be released into the wild in 2013 as part of the reintroduction programme (first female to ever be released). In 2016 it was reported that she was still doing well and had established her own territory (the pandas released have GPS/tracking collars to gather this information), so hopefully by now she is thriving in the wild and raising cubs of her own.
Their yard is near the front, to the right of Jun Zhu‘s yard. This yard had lots of leafy trees, meaning it had plenty of shade, I think it was the most shaded enclosure in the whole base with only a few sunny spots and the pandas mostly opting to take the shade. It was breakfast time when we first saw them, Zhang Ka was enjoying her bamboo alone while the twins seemed to be adamant on sharing a big piece of bamboo despite the large pile going free next to mum! The cub interactions are just one of the best things to watch with pandas. Despite the heat, they were still quite playful in the morning, however when we saw them after lunch, one cub was inside and only the other was venturing out for a wander. This cub was very inquisitive and came right up to the front edge of the yard. Here there is a paved ditch around the inside of the boundary wall – this is mostly wall but there is some glass, and the cub came over to the glass area and was standing up on it’s hind legs to try and get a look out. It was still a little too small to see properly through the glass though! And don’t worry – the boundary markers are plenty high, so there was no risk of escaping. The information on the sign says that An Bao likes to sleep and is a bit slower, while Zhong Zhong is active and agile and runs over when she hears her nanny.
As far as I remember/for the pandas that I saw at the base, this was the only set of pandas which was a mother with cub(s), the other yards with multiple pandas were all young/sub-adult pandas living together. And I think these were the youngest cubs I saw at the base.
