"They are just seemingly plush and harmless": How I looked after pandas
It all started with the fact that twelve years ago I received a grant. No, not so - it all started with the fact that after graduating from university in Russia, I chose a study program in Britain. I did not have money, and I began to look for someone who will pay it to me. I sent to one hundred and fifty large companies one hundred and fifty letters of the same content, where I told about myself, brilliant educational successes and the chosen British program - and finally asked whether, dear sir, in your wonderful company there are grants to pay for training for young talents in your interests.
I was refused again and again, but after six months the grant was still found: I am an ecologist by profession and a large chemical company agreed to pay for my studies. They teach environmentalists and sponsor scientific research in the field of environmental clean-up, thus compensating for the damage caused to nature. So I got to Oxford University.
I planned only to learn, but life, as usual, made its corrections: I married a fellow student. After graduation, I had to stay in the UK to live and, accordingly, to look for work, housing, and so on. To my great surprise, almost half of my classmates did not want to do this at all, and even more than that - planned the gap year. It turned out that in Britain, many students do not get a job right after the university, but spend the next year - it is called "intermediate" - on a journey. This is done in order to understand what you want to continue to do, where to direct your future career, well, just to live abroad, to see people and the world in your youth, while there are no serious obligations yet.
Yesterday’s students are not rich, and it’s not customary to turn to parents for money or to live at their expense, so graduates go on a budget. Someone uses hitchhiking, someone finds a job in another country or earns money here and there, and as it turned out, many go to volunteer - to work for free in some charitable organization in exchange for tickets, food and housing. As a result, my husband and I traveled a couple of months by car across Europe and returned to look for work. We considered spending a whole year unreasonable. But I liked the idea of a holiday with benefit and without expenses, and after a few years we decided and went for the first time to work on a volunteer program for a month in Africa, a large reserve is quite a logical choice for a family of two environmentalists.
The English friends cheerfully asked the details, the Russian ones mostly reacted in the style of “you have nothing to do, you work for free”, the mother screamed on Skype “they will kill you there”, but everything ended well, and we got so many impressions that any hitchhiker would envy. We worked in the nursery, which breeds leopards. Since then, we go regularly about once a year and a half, always together - and every time to a new place. We visited Africa, Latin America and several times in Asia. We got acquainted with leopards, elephants, pumas, monkeys, turtles, big pandas and a sea of smaller living creatures.
Pandas have long strong claws, sharp teeth, and they do not at all seek to be friends with a person, they will cripple easily. They are not only touched, nourished - you cannot even enter them
Volunteering is good because it allows you to travel to remote countries for free, to get to know them from the inside, to communicate with the residents and not to turn into a restless, unwashed vagabond, as sometimes happens with backpackers. The organization provides the employee with a ticket, transfer, accommodation and meals, sometimes even a little bit (usually very little, for pocket expenses). If you need a visa, it will help with the visa as well. Visa services pass through the volunteers without any problems. In return, a person is expected to have optimism, good health, knowledge of the English language and a desire to work. There are a lot of programs; for most, special skills are not needed - from a volunteer in a nature reserve, for example, you generally need to prepare food for animals and clean up the area; anyone can do this. The term is different - from a week to a year.
At the airport, an employee is met - at the reserves there is always their own transport - and they are taken to the plane at the end, which is important, because charitable services usually work in deaf places, where it is difficult to reach without a car. Under the housing allocate something like a small hotel right on the territory or not far from it in a nearby village. They try to make the hotel as best as possible so that they have all the modern conveniences and, if possible, give everyone a separate room. Meals are simple: either you have your own canteen or just give a card to some cafe. Often, the kitchen is, if desired, you can cook yourself.
You need to work seven days a week - there is no weekend for animals, they need food and care every day. All quit and go for a walk is impossible. The working day usually lasts for fifteen or sixteen hours, but there are half a day free once a week. Far from going, but the surroundings and local culture can be studied thoroughly. Volunteers are usually happy with the reserve workers and the locals - everyone is ready to talk, show and tell.
My last trip was to China, to the base for the protection and breeding of large pandas. Such services are by no means zoos, and the reserve for pandas is exactly the same: animals are bred here, the resulting offspring are raised, adapted to life in the wild, and then released into the forest, into nature conservation areas. Adult pandas will not be released like that - they are already accustomed to living on everything that is ready, so they begin to adapt their offspring from birth. Therefore, pandas here do not sit in cages - they live their life in large open enclosures where the jungle is kept, and each animal has a separate section of about one hundred square meters. There are paths between the enclosures, tourists can come to look at a part of the territory, but only from a distance.
I was given three pandas for whom I was supposed to care. Scientists are engaged in breeding, adaptation and other serious things, and the task of a volunteer (he is considered to be the assistant to the caretaker) is to prepare pandas for food and remove food debris several times a day, as well as to clean up garbage and waste. really nothing can be done. To put in order the territory, the panda is lured into the house and for a time they are locked in it. Otherwise it is impossible: pandas are only seemingly plush and harmless, but in reality they are large animals from the bear family with long strong claws and sharp teeth; they don’t want to be friends with a man - they will cripple easily. They are not only touched and squeezed - it is impossible to enter them even in an open-air cage: it is dangerous, and the adaptation of cubs prevents. But at a distance you can watch as much as you like, and this is great, I was ready to watch day and night.
In nature, pandas eat almost only bamboo, but in the reserve they are also given sugarcane, vegetables and special bread with additives suitable for pandas, they bake it right here. Bread is given to pandas while they are locked up for cleaning in the house, and bamboo and cane are simply laid out in an open-air cage twice a day. After the morning feeders and cleaning, you can spend an hour walking in the woods (the territory is good) or go and see the pandas that other workers do.
I usually went to look at the cubs. Unlike adult animals, babies up to a certain age can be touched and even picked up if you lift them, of course: big pandas are big animals, even a small bear weighs fifteen kilograms. They become aggressive only when they grow up, because they begin to defend their territory from strangers, and in childhood they play with pleasure with any living creatures - including humans. To accustom them to play with people is impossible, even those who are not planned to be released into the wild, but if the young one needs to be treated, for example, and he climbs to the rangers, he can’t go anywhere.
My inner mimimeter has broken forever: watch the leopard kittens or the little pandas play in the forest, and I just can’t die
In the afternoon, for an hour and a half, they gave for lunch, then it was necessary to come to feed the pandas again - and the evening was free. The choice of entertainment is not rich: cinema or chatter with other volunteers (from all over the world, so it can be very interesting), but during the day we were so tired that we no longer wanted to go anywhere. In Africa, we were freed earlier, there sometimes happened to go to a nearby town in the evening, and in China - alas. Although sometimes we went to the village bar (quite a decent one, by the way), I finally even learned how to order drinks in Chinese.
People often ask me if it is a pity to spend a vacation on this. No, I do not mind. Two weeks of communication with wildlife is a wonderful vacation, especially if you constantly live in such a megalopolis as London. There are reserves in remote and insanely beautiful wild places, where it is difficult for a tourist to get. The jungles are incredibly diverse, and pandas (and other rare animals) are wonderful creatures that are a pleasure to watch. It is also interesting to look at the country from the non-fair, non-touristic side. Along the way, we made friends all over the world, learned to live without an abundance of things, appreciate well-being and not worry about nothing. Well, the animals looked: pandas, leopards and elephants have ceased to be for me exclusively cartoon characters. In addition, my internal mimimer has broken forever: watch the leopard kittens or the little pandas play in the forest, and I just can't not die every time because of happiness.
By the way, there are several such panda reserves in China, and everyone takes volunteers. There are also reserves for many other rare animals: there is a large elephant breeding reserve in Sri Lanka, a sea turtles park on one of the islands of Indonesia, in Africa there are many parks for the protection of "big cats" - lions or leopards, and so on. All of them work exclusively in the field of environmental protection. You can go to any of them, including from Russia. To do this, you need to find a volunteer program on the Internet, register for participation in it on the site, and then they will tell you what to do. You usually need to write a letter explaining why you want to go, have an online interview (it is mainly aimed at assessing the overall adequacy and the presence of bad habits) and a medical examination. If everything is in order, the reserve will send you the documents for a visa and a ticket.
Photo:crazybboy - stock.adobe.com, stuporter - stock.adobe.com