Close to her heart

Li Jia of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base has a dream job - she gets to cuddle baby pandas everyday and has been doing so for the past five years.

The 24-year-old nursing major was ready to start work in a hospital after graduating in 2003, when she saw a TV program about the research base.

It immediately hit this animal lover from Yibin, a city about 300 km from Chengdu, that this was where she wanted to work.

When on a day shift, Li works from 8 am to 5 pm in the panda's maternity ward, taking care of 7-month-old Xiang Bing, or "fragrant ice."

"I clean her den and the enclosure meant for her exercise and then place the bamboo I have gathered for her to play with. After that, I play with her," Li says.

Like mother and child, Li runs after the panda and even plays horse, something the cub loves. She says Xiang Bing also likes playing on the swing, having as much fun as a kindergarten kid. Li steadies her when on the swing and scolds her if she climbs too high into the trees.

"When she does a good job during her exercise, I reward her with a small piece of apple," Li says.

Recently, when Li picked up Xiang Bing, who was happily running and got annoyed at being disturbed, the panda bit her right hand, leaving Li with a small scar.

Li was lucky. A full-grown panda would have been able to bite her fingers off.

Xiang Bing is fed bottled milk twice a day at 6 am and 2 pm as pandas, under the age of 1, are too young to eat bamboo. At 10 am, she drinks water.

When on the night shift, Li feeds the cub bottled milk.

"The night shift ends at 5 am, with the new day's work ready to begin at 8 am," Li says.

Sometimes, she admits, she feels really tired but, "I am always happy in the company of the pandas."

Li's husband Deng Tao, 27, shares her passion for the animal.

A graduate of the Chengdu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary School, Deng is also a keeper at the base. He got there a year before Li and the couple got married earlier this year.

Supervisor Yang Kuixing, a major in animal husbandry and veterinary sciences from the Southwest Agricultural University in Chongqing, says the base has improved greatly over the past decade.

When he first arrived, "It had no bus links and the road leading to it had no street lights," he says.

The center now attracts thousands of visitors a year.

Yang, who had not seen a live panda before coming to the base, gradually fell in love with his job.

"Most keepers who worked here when I started were young local farmers," he says. "Now, most of the keepers are college graduates who love pandas as much as I do."

According to Yang, it is easy for pandas in captivity to follow the keepers, for they become close to the keepers after staying with them for a long time.

"Captive pandas mingle with their keepers since their birth," he says. "Mothers of wild pandas stop nursing their cubs when they are a-year-and-a-half, but mothers of captive pandas in the base stop doing so when their cubs are just half-a-year-old, leaving them to be cared for by the keepers.

"Pandas are very clever and can understand what their keepers say."

Yang says the keepers talk to the pandas like they are their babies, caressing and playing with them.

Pandas in the base have to take a blood test every month. After undergoing training - ranging from a few weeks to a few months - all the pandas know they should extend their hand out of the cage to give blood as soon the rack to collect the samples appears before them.

"When the needle is inserted, the keepers will usually feed them their favorite food to divert their attention from the pain," says Yang.

(China Daily 03/25/2008 page18)