• Counting China's wild pandas

    By Adrienne Mong

    YINGJING, SICHUAN—The panda was always one of my favorite animals.

    Until I found myself slipping and sliding down a steep muddy mountain slope in southwestern Sichuan, looking for panda poop.

    To be precise, someone else was searching. 

    My colleagues and I were just attempting to keep up with him on what was easily one of the more physically grueling NBC News assignments we’d all been on in years.

    Li Guiren, a fleet-footed 36-year old Sichuan native who works at the Chinese Forestry Department, was hiking through the mud, following coordinates on his bright yellow GPS device.  He’s one of 70 “trackers” working in Sichuan to count pandas in the wild—which they do by collecting panda droppings.  (More on that in a moment.)

    China kicked off its panda census last month.  It’s the fourth one since the 1970s, when they instituted the practice to keep tabs on the worldwide panda bear count every 10 years.

    The wild panda is only found in China, across parts of three provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi, covering 5,400 square miles.  Or the size of Connecticut.

    The bears like being high up, usually somewhere between 4,000 and 11,500 square feet above sea level in mountain forests with a damp climate.

    The last census revealed only 1,596 wild pandas existed with 290 pandas in captivity around the world.

    Adrienne Mong / NBC News

    Li Guiren takes notes on the geography on a Sichuan mountain.

    “About 70 to 80 percent [of all the pandas in the world] live in Sichuan,” said Huang Zhi of the Bifengxia Panda Breeding Center in Ya’an, Sichuan.  “Sichuan also has the highest number of wild pandas.”

    Trackers in the field
    Sichuan is also where the two-year panda census project has launched.  Smaller teams in Gansu and Shaanxi will begin working in the field next year.

    Early in the morning, a group of twenty men suited up in wet-weather clothes and thin boots.  They reviewed their cartographic materials and compared notes one last time before setting off.  Each one carried the same bright yellow GPS device Li was toting.

    Li, who took part in the last panda census, said new technology has had a huge impact on their work.  “We can get a lot more done more quickly,” he said, with the GPS device shaving the amount of time in the field down by about 30 percent.

    Each tracker is assigned a near-vertical tract of land to explore.  On average, they cover 1.2 to 1.5 square miles a day, looking for panda droppings.  (A typical male panda roams in a territory about 3.3 square miles whereas a female confines herself to 1.8 square miles.)  Li found a pile that looked like it had been produced within the past three days, which he bagged and brought back to base camp for analysis.

    “We take a sample for DNA testing,” he said as he prepared the panda waste.  “The DNA test demands fresh feces not more than four days old.  This is very fresh.”

    But DNA testing isn’t foolproof so Li and his colleagues also measured the undigested bamboo scraps to help identify the pandas individually.  “We measure the width of the teeth marks,” he explained.  Each bear has an individual bite with differing teeth sizes.

    Habitat challenges
    While in the panda’s natural habitat, the research teams also take detailed notes of the conditions and its geology. 

    “What people normally care about is the number of the pandas,” said Gu Xiaodong, a scientist with the Sichuan branch of the Wildlife Survey Conservation and Management in the Forestry Department.  “We care more about the quality of their habitat.”

    With the data the trackers are collecting, the scientists will be able to analyze changes to the habitat and "draw up more effective conservation policies," continued Gu.  “For example, last time we found pandas in locations between the reserves we had established,” he said.  “So we had to set up more reserves to protect these pandas.”

    Adrienne Mong

    Li Guiren and other researchers measure undigested bamboo in the panda droppings to help identify each animal.

    Researchers also hope to have more detailed information about the impact of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which measured 7.9 (by the U.S. Geological Survey) and devastated the famed Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Center, one of the earliest research bases set up by the Chinese government in the early 1980s. 

    But humans remain the biggest threat to the survival of wild pandas.

    With more than 80 million people, Sichuan is one of China’s more densely populated provinces.  In recent years, it has seen large inflows of government investment and is rapidly urbanizing.  Scientists have cited roads and high-speed railways as a major hazard encroaching on the panda’s natural habitat in the mountains.

    But mining is also a problem.  The day we trudged up the mountain with Li and Gu, we passed a couple of mines—one of them lead, whose run-off cast an unhealthy gray tinge to the river.  Loud explosions went off even during our hike, unsettling us as much as the pandas.

    “The place where we are doing research now, it’s always been a traffic-intensive area with a lot of human activity,” said Gu.  “The pandas here probably choose to go higher.”

    But they still sometimes descend into human territory, especially if it means getting something to eat other than bamboo plants. While the giant panda's diet consists mostly of bamboo, they do have the digestive system of carnivores. 

    Gu confirmed that local farmers have regularly complained about pandas raiding their livestock.  “One farmer has his goats eaten by pandas every year,” recalled Gu, who said the Forestry Department offers compensation in such instances.

    Mating challenges
    Mating habits are also a challenge, particularly for pandas in captivity.

    Female pandas are only in heat for three days a year.  The window for conceiving is very narrow—from 12 to 24 hours during those 72 hours.

    Adrienne Mong / NBC News

    The panda's natural habitat is a rugged landscape, but it's also being encroached by China's westward development.

    Pandas in the wild don’t generally have a problem reproducing, said Huang from the breeding center.  But those in captivity usually need a bit of help—whether through artificial insemination or even the famed panda porn method.

    Despite the success in breeding the cuddly animals in captivity, there’s been none so far in re-introducing fully domesticated pandas into the wild.

    Nonetheless, researchers say they think breeding programs and conservation efforts have worked to keep the panda from advancing any closer to extinction.

    “We really hope once the census is done, we’ll find more pandas than we found in the last census,” said Li.  “That will mean what we’ve been doing has made progress.”

    And if the scientists are right, that will make at least one civilian very happy.

    A man by the name of An Yanshi in Sichuan is collecting panda poop by the bucket-loads to make tea—with curative properties.

    “Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 percent of everything they eat,” An has been quoted as saying.  “That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients.”

    He plans to market the tea as the world’s most expensive—at $36,000 a poop.  A pop.  A pound.

  • Save the rainforest? Grow a mushroom!

    By NBC News' Warangkana Chomchuen

    NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand – Mushrooms are working their magic in one of Thailand’s largest national parks.

    Not the kind of magic sought after by some backpackers on their psychedelic beach trips; rather, one that lures poachers and illegal loggers to abandon the forests for mushroom barns, thus promoting nature conservation when law enforcement and penalties alone don’t work.

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    One successful convert is Wanchai Noinart.

    Having little education and few job skills, Wanchai used to roam the lush jungles of Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park, logging and poaching in response to the ever increasing demand for wildlife and wood.

    "It was my only choice then," said 34-year-old Wanchai. "The economy was very bad and I couldn’t find any other job." And it was a convenient and lucrative business, he said.

    His village borders Khao Yai National Park, a World Heritage site about 120 miles from Bangkok that spans almost 400 square miles and is a habitat to hundreds of animal species, including endangered tigers, Asian elephants, gibbons (small apes), deer, and wild boars.

    But while parks like Khao Yai offer natural lovers a rare treat, they also offer a rich supply of illegal wildlife products to meet the growing demand from within Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia.

    Animals, dead or alive, as well as animal parts, such as bear paws or wild boar meat, are deemed a culinary treat and can fetch high prices at local and international markets. Wild animals are also used in traditional Asian medicine and offered as aphrodisiacs.

    Illegal logging of scented rosewoods, used for furniture, is also highly profitable.

    Due to its illicit nature, it is hard to know their exact numbers, but conservationists and park officials estimate that about 100 poachers sneak into the park every day.

    From January to March this year alone, more than 5,600 live animals and 61,500 dead animals were recovered, worth about $4.5 million on the black market, according to ASEAN-Wildlife Enforcement Network.

    Wanchai said he could earn up to $300 a week from logging and poaching, the equivalent of one month’s salary for an entry-level government official here.

    Still, he knew he could not make a living like that forever.

    "I was always cautious, always in constant fear of getting caught by park rangers," said Wanchai. "I was worried about my wife and kids if I were to be arrested."

    Mushrooms offer safer living
    That was until last year when Wanchai heard of a fungi farming project, an initiative launched by Thailand’s Freeland Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to fighting illegal poaching and logging.

    "I think nobody wants to risk [their lives] poaching and logging in the forests," said Mukda Thongnaitham of Freeland. "They just don’t know what else to do. The mushroom farming project gives them an alternative livelihood – a solution to earn money without breaking the law."

    Mushrooms were chosen, after several discussions and surveys with villagers, because the crop yields almost perennially and is highly marketable thanks to the high demand for Thai cuisine and the boom in organic vegetables.

    In addition, growing mushrooms isn’t too complicated for villagers who don’t have a college diploma or a plot of land. Most of the farmers set up a small nursery barn at home or at the project center.

    However, when Freeland first started the mushroom program only two families signed up.

    "It was very challenging at first. The villagers thought we would conspire with park rangers and put them in jail," Mukda said.

    But just a little over a year since it started, the project is gaining steady success. Several families have joined and are finding that mushroom farming is a way to generate steady income – enough to make poachers leave the forests for good.

    From hunting to guiding
    Khao Yai National Park also initiated several other projects, including the "trek like real hunters" program that trains poachers and loggers to become jungle tour guides.

    "At first they weren’t interested. They didn’t see the benefits of it and some of them still bore grudges about getting arrested by park rangers," said Narongsak Namtapee, the park’s deputy chief.

    But the program has been giving the new guides steady incomes. The number of nature lovers who buy the tour packages has risen from zero to about 20,000 per year in the last few years.

    Despite their best efforts to lure poachers and loggers away from their illicit trade with a steady paycheck, Narongsak said park rangers still patrol every day and arrest loggers on a weekly basis.

    Sometimes park rangers are outnumbered, or outsmarted, by poachers playing hide and seek. That’s where the ex-poachers can contribute tremendous intelligence resources to park rangers.

    "Our rangers move and transfer all the time, while villagers and community stay put. The bottom line is if the community and the park can coexist, both will survive."

    As for Wanchai, he and his wife wake up before dawn to collect newly sprung mushrooms in his barn and even have time to labor in cornfields during the harvest season.

    "I feel so relieved that I don’t have to run away from park rangers anymore," he said with a grin. "I can make a living at home. It’s safe. Lives are saved."