How difficult is it to be a giant panda keeper in China?

"The most unattainable job turns out to be giant panda keeper!" Chinese netizens exclaimed in surprise after finding out that a tourist attraction in east China's Jiangsu Province couldn't find one suitable candidate from hundreds of applicants for its job of giant panda keeper.

After a keeper resigned from his job, the Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area, a national 5A-rated tourist attraction in Liyang city, Jiangsu Province, recently posted a job opening for a new keeper for its giant panda house.

A giant panda eats bamboo in the Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area in Liyang city, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo/Wuhan Evening News)

Since internet users across the country pay great attention to captive giant pandas, and that they regard watching photos and videos of giant pandas as a good way to relieve pressure, the giant panda keeper has also emerged as a popular profession.

Thanks to the rising wave of giant panda appreciation, the Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area has seen resumés pour in, with the daily number peaking at 280. However, none of the applicants were found suitable for the job.

The unsuccessful recruitment became a trending topic online and has made people wonder about the duties of giant panda keeper. Many netizens asked questions like "Why is it so hard to find a keeper for giant pandas?”, "What is their daily routine like?" and "How can one do a good job taking care of giant pandas?"

Li Zixiao, a giant panda keeper at the Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area, addressed these questions in a recent interview with the media.

The ancestors of giant pandas lived in the high mountains and deep valleys in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, where there are lush green bamboo forests. During the past millions of years, giant pandas gradually switched from meat to bamboo to adapt to their living environment. Bamboo now accounts for more than 90 percent of the food they eat every day.

Li gets up at around 5:30 a.m. every day, then prepares breakfast for two giant pandas, whose names are Hua Li and Xing An, before eating breakfast himself.

An adult giant panda eats about 25 kilograms of bamboo a day, according to Li, who explained that keepers need to carry clean bamboos for each giant panda several times a day.

Tourists watch a giant panda named Hua Li eat bamboo in Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area in Liyang city, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo/Wuhan Evening News)

"When I see them eat, I feel full," Li said with a big smile. The post-90s young man, who became a keeper at Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area in 2015 after graduating from Jiangsu Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry in Jurong city, Jiangsu, with a degree in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, takes great pleasure in his job.

After giant pandas leave their rooms to enjoy breakfast outdoors, Li starts to clean their rooms where they eat and rest at night. Before clearing their feces, Li carefully observes the feces and breaks a random piece of them into half for further examination.

"Besides keeping their living environment tidy and clean, we giant panda keepers also need to look after them day and night and check their health at any given time, so that we can timely respond in case anything goes wrong," said Li, who explained that giant pandas' feces tell a lot about their health.

Giant pandas don't have a caecum and have a relatively short intestine. They can't digest plant fiber like most herbivores and can only absorb nutrients in the sap. Therefore, giant pandas need to eat a lot and eat frequently to meet their energy needs. They spend most of their waking hours eating.

"They often eat and play for an hour, and then sleep for two hours. The cycle is repeated day and night," Li said.

This lifestyle may sound enviable, but it means a hard job for keepers, as someone must work at night to look after the giant pandas.

At the Nanshan Zhuhai scenic area, the wooden house where keepers rest is only one aisle away from the giant panda house. The keeper on duty at night checks on the giant pandas every few hours and brings new bamboos to them in time.

According to Li, keepers also feed clean apples, carrots, and a specially made brown steamed bread to giant pandas regularly.

Keepers make the steamed bread every day. The recipe for the bread, which is referred to as the "love recipe" by Li, contains a variety of ingredients, including rice flour, corn flour, soybean flour, sugar, salt, and eggs. After mixing the ingredients, keepers knead the mixture to shape it, and then steam the dough for four hours.

"I've tasted it. It's quite nice. Just like a hard steamed cake," Li said, noting that all the captive giant pandas like such steamed bread.

"We need to control the amount of the steamed bread they eat. Each giant panda has 1,200 grams of it every day. Though they like it, they can't have too much of it, as bamboo is their staple," Li said.

Tasks such as mucking out, disinfecting facilities, digging bamboo shoots, making steamed bread, carrying bamboos, and working night shifts make the work of giant panda keepers laborious. That's why many people backed out after learning the duties of the job.

"We contacted several young people who applied for the job, but they hesitated and decided to pass up the opportunity after learning the details of the job," Li said, adding that basically all female applicants would back out when they hear that keepers need to stay at a wooden house in a mountain alone during night shifts.

Few young people have the courage to take care of giant pandas day and night in a secluded bamboo forest, and still less would stick to the job when the pay is not very good.

Li said he earns a monthly salary of about 5,000 yuan ($728), and works six days a week. He has to work on holidays, and gets busier during such times.

Nevertheless, Li has stuck to the job all these years.

"My hometown is in Xuzhou city, Jiangsu. It's 500 kilometers away from where I work. I feel happy that I can raise our 'national treasure' here. I can enjoy fresh air, and giant pandas are so cute," Li said, adding that he plans to buy a house and settle in a township near the scenic area.

Recently the scenic area finally recruited a new keeper for giant pandas, according to Li. Li's new colleague is also a young man who graduated with a degree in a major related to animal husbandry and veterinary medicine.

The new keeper would soon join the keepers team and begin training, according to Li.