Panda pictures delight town of dancers
Print Edition
A Tibetan town in southwest China known for panda worship and a “panda dance” said hidden cameras had recorded a wild panda there for the first time.
Photographs and video footage taken on May 17 and 20 show an adult panda in a bamboo forest, according to the forestry office in Caodi Township in the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, Sichuan Province.
According to local legend, a panda god once appeared to teach local Tibetans to use a herb to cure a deadly plague.
Since then, people have worn panda masks and mimicked chewing bamboo and climbing trees in a millennium-old dance to scare away evil spirits and pray for blessings. The dance was included on China’s intangible cultural heritage list in 2014.
It was confirmed in 2013 that at least seven wild pandas were in the area after panda feces were found.
This led to the installation of the infrared cameras.
Giant pandas are one of the world’s most endangered species. About 1,600 live in the wild, mostly in the mountains of Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces, while more than 300 live in captivity.
Caodi is near the scenic Jiuzhai Valley, a World Heritage site.
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