In early August, staff at the Motianling Conservation Station of the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province recovered infrared cameras that were placed in the wild in the first quarter of this year. When sorting out the infrared cameras, it was found that the same infrared camera captured three video images of giant pandas, which were taken on March 25, April 4, and April 16, 2019.
After observation, the giant pandas in the images are all healthy adult individuals, with a leisurely gait and agile movements, as if they were taking a walk after a full meal. Sometimes they crawled on the edge of the dense bamboo forest in the distance to eat; sometimes they turned around and sniffed the smell information on the tree trunks on the hillside.
At the same time, giant pandas do not hibernate. They keep eating throughout the winter to keep themselves fat and strong. In the spring of next year, it is time for them to show their weight gain results: a group of two or three hundred kilograms of fat men meet together. In order to win the favor of the opposite sex, male giant pandas will show their strong muscles and even fight, while beautiful "fat girls" will climb up the branches to peek at their "sweethearts". As the saying goes, "good-looking skins are all the same, but interesting souls weigh more than two hundred kilograms", and giant pandas are the epitome of this.
The infrared camera was installed in the Huodigou area of the Tangjiahe Motianling Conservation Station, at an altitude of 2,105 meters. The shooting time period coincided with the estrus period of the Tangjiahe giant pandas. The reserve monitors the estrus of giant pandas from March to May every year. According to the staff of the Motianling Conservation Station, in recent years, the frequency of giant pandas has generally increased. Pandas are often found during daily patrols, steaming fresh panda feces, fresh bite marks on bamboo, and even tourists have taken videos of giant pandas. All these signs reflect the great achievements made in the scientific research monitoring and ecological protection of the reserve
