生來狂野:將獲得自由的熊貓幼崽

Pandas: cute but sexually inept and bamboozled by their own food requirements right? Not so. In fact it is life in captivity that disrupts the complex rhythm of panda mating behaviour with its territorial scent marking mating calls and complex social interactions.

熊貓： 可愛但性冷淡，而且對食物種類要求十分偏執？ 並非如此，事實上他們被圈養打亂了通過領地氣味傳達交配訊息和複雜的社互動動的複雜交配行為節奏。

Most pandas born in captivity will spend their lives there in China or on loan to zoos abroad. But at Hetaoping field station within Wolong reserve in a painstakingly slow process some pandas are being prepped for a future in the wild. These candidate animals are carefully sexted – they must be naturally wary of humans.

大部分圈養大熊貓終其一生生活在中國或者通過借貸到外國動物園裡。但在臥龍保護區的核桃坪野化培訓基地正在進行一項緩慢而艱辛的專案。一些熊貓在接受將來野外生存的訓練。這些候選熊貓是精心挑選出來的——它們對人類必須保有天生的警惕心。

Baby pandas are tiny hairless and incredibly vulnerable. Captive-born babies are removed to incubators to increase their chances of survival where staff bottle-feed them rock them burp them and keep a close eye on errant toddlers – all the duties of a parent including the sleepless nights. But the babies sexted for a wilder future stay with their mothers before being moved to fenced-in habitats further up the mountain. Since 2006 five have been released (wearing tracking collars) and three are still alive. A handful of others are also being considered for release.

熊貓幼崽十分幼小，無毛，非常脆弱，圈養的熊貓寶寶將會被轉移到育幼箱提高他們存活的機率。工作人員負責用奶瓶餵養他們，拍打他們讓其打嗝並密切照看-身兼所有作為父母的責任包括不眠不休整晚，然而這些寶寶在轉移到山上圍欄棲息地之前會交於熊貓媽媽撫養進一步野化。自2006年以來基地已經野外放生了5只大熊貓（佩戴追蹤器），目前存活了3只。基地正在考慮再少量放歸一些。

Pandas need large territories: they eat about 9kg-18kg (20lb-40lb) of bamboo each day. In fact bones found in China indicate that pandas as we know them have been around for two million years and for all that time they thrived and spread throughout southern and eastern China northern Myanmar and Vietnam. Then came the human population boom and millennia of panda behaviour was disrupted in a few years.

熊貓需求大片領地：他們每天吃9-18公斤（20-40磅）竹子，事實上，通過中國發現的骨頭顯示熊貓已經存在了200萬年並且活躍與擴張到中國南部和東部，緬甸和越南北部。隨之人口爆炸性增長導致數千年來熊貓活動領地在短短几年被破壞。

With much of their habitat destroyed survivors became isolated – it is estimated that their current mountain habitat in China comprises just 1% of their original range. The 70s saw their nadir – with estimates of just 800 to 1000 left in the wild. In 1980 the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda was founded at Wolong. Alongside government protection of their habitat this has seen numbers in the most recent survey (2014) rise to more than 1800. However scientific models suggest that global warming could reduce their remaining habitat by 60% in the next 70 years. Their continued survival is far from a black-and-white issue.

隨著許多熊貓棲息地被破壞倖存下來的熊貓變得孤立起來——據估計它們現如今生存的山林棲息地範圍地僅為當初的1%。在70年代大熊貓數量達到了歷史最低點——據估計在野外僅有800-1000只存活。1980年中國大熊貓保護與研究中心在臥龍成立。隨著政府對大熊貓棲息地的保護，在最近的調查中（2014）顯示野外大熊貓的數量已經上升到了1800只。然而科學模型卻暗示全球變暖會導致大熊貓棲息地在70年後減少60% 。它們的持續生存問題遠遠不像黑-與-白那樣簡單。