An intrepid group of "panda seekers" dispatched by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) recently surveyed a panda habitat in the mountains of southwest China's Sichuan Province, looking for traces of the endangered animals.

About one-third of China's pandas are not effectively protected as a result of natural disasters, climate change and human activity.?[File photo]

Four panda seekers were sent by the international conservation group to carry out a five-day expedition in a nature reserve of Ebian county in the suburbs of Leshan city around the end of last month.

Although they did not actually spot any pandas during their trip, they did find evidence of the animals in the form of footprints and droppings. Part of their mission included using GPS and ultrared cameras to identify and record traces of wild pandas, and share their findings with the WWF's panda researchers, as well as local villagers.

The expedition was aimed at promoting public awareness of both the giant panda's role in the ecosystem and how ordinary people can get involved in wild panda protection, said Luo Xingbi, a program officer from WWF's Chengdu office.

The Heizhugou Nature Reserve, which literally means "death valley" in the local ethnic Yi dialect, is uninhabited because of its adverse natural conditions.

"This place is known as 'China's Bermuda Triangle,' as several people were reported missing here in the 1960s and 1970s," said Zhou Longlin, deputy chief of the reserve's administration. "The absence of human beings, however, makes the place an ideal habitat for wild animals."

After nearly five hours of trekking on their first day, Zhang Junming, a panda seeker from central China's Hunan Province, reported his first major discovery -- panda droppings that were at least six months old.

"It was dried out and the bamboo fiber had turned dark. The color change normally takes six to eight months," said Li Shiheibu, a native of Ebian and a forestry worker at the reserve who served as the panda seekers' guide.

Two days later, Zhang and his teammate, Guan Jianhong from Beijing University, found fresh droppings and recently-consumed bamboo at the top of a hill.

"It's amazing that fresh panda droppings do not stink at all," said Guan. "It smells of bamboo leaves."

The panda's intestines are short and the animal is not ruminant like cattle, Li said. "Pandas therefore do not digest very well."

As a result, Li said pandas are extremely careful when they search for food. "They move as little as possible in order to consume less energy than what they can get from a meal."

Pandas always sit down and eat all the bamboo they can reach before moving on to the next grove, Li said.

When they sense danger, however, pandas can move surprisingly fast. "I once saw a panda running to the top of a craggy hill -- it ran as fast as a sprinter," Li said.

He said pandas are very sensitive and can smell humans at a range of up to 5 km. "They flee before you spot them," he added.

However, the pandas can also be quite brazen in their interactions with humans. When blizzards hit the mountains, the pandas sometimes sneak into nearby villages and steal sheep, according to Qu Bieguahu, a villager living near the nature reserve.

"Elderly people in the village said they used to be scared of pandas and would fight them off with clubs," Qu said.

Knowing that giant pandas are protected, the villagers are more friendly to the intruders. But all of the households in Qu's village have tall fences around their sheepfolds to keep out wild animals, he said. "With no sheep around, pandas are sometimes seen rummaging the scrap heap for kitchen waste," he said.

Qu and many other ethnic Yi villagers have joined a 30-member patrol team in the Heizhugou Nature Reserve to provide first-hand data for panda researchers.

The villagers face the risk of encountering natural disasters such as landslides, as well as attacks by wild animals, but enjoy their task all the same.

"Our love for pandas is our motivation," said Chen Xuefeng, a member of the patrol team.

A survey based on their data indicated that about 33 giant pandas live on the the reserve, which is located in the Liangshan Mountains on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

The Liangshan Mountains are home to 115 pandas, or 7.2 percent of China's entire wild panda population.

Panda researchers said about one-third of China's pandas are not effectively protected as a result of natural disasters, climate change and human activity.