Scott Swan/Eyewitness News
Chengdu, China - Pandas are considered a national treasure in China, an endangered species the country is going to great lengths to protect.
There are only 1,500 pandas left in the wild and fewer than 300 left in captivity. Getting to their natural habitat from Indiana includes a 14-hour flight to Beijing, another three-hour flight to Chengdu and an hour's drive.
Chengdu is a bustling place, with 10 million residents, making it a challenge to walk across the street - even if you have a green light. But it's certainly easier than waking up the most famous residents of the city, who live in approximately 200 wooded acres.
The animals at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding spend a good portion of each day sleeping.
"Four hours sleep, two hours eating, rolling," said a worker at the center.
Workers are in charge of feeding the 67 pandas at the center, often finding it difficult to shake them out of their slumber. But once the giant pandas are awake, it's breakfast time. The babies, who don't have a full set of teeth yet, snack on apples and bamboo.
"We put fresh bamboo leaves in front of their mouths and tell them how to eat the bamboo leaves," said panda keeper Hou Guifang.
With food in their bellies, the baby pandas become playful, even putting on a show for visitors.
"They're mostly playing around. I guess when two pandas get to play, they get pretty entertaining," said David Durant of New York. "Hitting each other, stepping on each other, like Kung Fu Panda, the movie."
While it's fun to watch them, it is a thrill to hold them.
"They're so cute and cuddly," said Jen Vanderlaan.
"I can't deny it, they're cute and cuddly. I would love to grab one," said another man.
For a fee, visitors to the Chengdu Panda Base can find out just how cuddly the baby pandas can be. Workers say the pandas may become curious of an English speaker, since they're only familiar with the workers who train them using a Sichuan dialect.
Feeding the pandas is one thing, but breeding them is another.
"If they are healthy, they can breed well. If they're not well, they cannot do it and it's hard for us to protect the panda's population," said Luo Li, a veterinarian.
The Chengdu Panda Base claims breakthroughs - like artificial insemination and helping twins survive - because often, the adult panda will reject one of the babies, forcing keepers to raise them by hand.
"We can switch the two babies to give to the mom and they can have equal chance to care by the mom and survive successfully," Li said.
Survival was made more difficult in May during the devastating earthquake that rocked the area. A different panda center was damaged and pandas were moved to Beijing, where Olympic visitors are flocking for a look. At the Chengdu Panda Base, there is an opportunity to watch.
"It's just cool to watch them. They're small and they're really furry. It's hard not to love them," said a visitor.
Two days after the Olympics began, one of the pandas had twins. So far this year, eight baby pandas have been born at the research center.
