A patrol team stumbled upon and filmed three wild giant pandas over two straight days in mid-April in the same area of the Giant Panda National Park in Qingchuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The first panda was spotted by the ecological monitoring patrol team in their routine patrol at the Dalingzi section of the Tangjiahe area of the park. It was seen alone holding a tree trunk at an altitude of 2,400 meters, occasionally turning its head to look around.
The following day, the team came across two more pandas in the same area. The first was seen poking its head out of a bamboo grove beside a wildlife trail at an altitude of 2,700 meters -- and after a brief look around, it retreated. The second was discovered deeper in the bamboo grove at 2,900 meters, where it was busy eating bamboo.
Experts have confirmed through comprehensive analysis of body size, fur color, and movement trajectories that the three pandas sighted by the patrol team were all different individuals.
Such a high frequency of wild giant panda encounters not only demonstrates the continued improvement of the local ecosystem but also reflects the solid achievements of China's biodiversity conservation efforts.
"We are very excited to be able to sight giant pandas continuously, as it's so rare to spot them in the wild, even seeing one -- let alone three -- is absolutely incredible. Based on our analysis, we can draw a preliminary conclusion that giant pandas are living very well in our Tangjiahe area, their food resources are ample, and the quality of the giant panda habitat is steadily improving," said Yang Bangfu, a staff member of the Tangjiahe Reserve Management Office.
Rare panda sightings recorded in Sichuan
