The giant panda is one of lovable and sweettempered wild animals. Being a kind of species, their existence time is much longer than the mankind. When the World Wildlife Fund was set up in 1961, it chose this rare and beautiful animal for its emblem.

Situated on the southeastern slope of the Qionglai Mountain in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, the Wolong Nature Reserve was set up in 1975, with an area measuring 200,000 hectares .primarily for the protection of alpine ecosystem and rare species such as giant panda and dove tree, etc. The amount of giant pandas living here takes about one tenth of China's total number, so the place is called" the Native Haunt for Giant Panda".

According to preliminary statistics, the Reserve houses 4, 000 species of plants, over 400 species of mammals and birds. In the dense coniferous forests and mixed coniferous—broadleaf forests, a large number of walking stick bamboos, large fountain bamboos and cold fountain bamboos provide not only rich foods to giant pandas, but also make a suitable habitat environment to 29 species of other rare animals such as golden monkey, takin, white—lipped deer, green—tailed monal, blood pheasant, etc.

In 1978,the worldwide first giant panda field ecology observation station "the May Day Shed "was set up in the Reserve. In 1980, Giant Panda Protecting Research Center was founded jointly by the Reserve and the World Wildlife Fund. Taking the May Day Shed as a base and using advanced radio — monitoring equipment, scientists from home and abroad have made a great progress in researches on the ecology of both single giant panda and groups of giant pandas, as well as on the main food of giant panda—bamboo family.