China's panda population recovering years after earthquake (11 images)

In China’s mountainous Sichuan Province, a network of research centers, nature reserves, breeding facilities and wildlife sanctuaries are dedicated to saving the world's panda population. More than 75 researchers work at the Panda Research Base in Chengdu. Here is a look behind the scenes in November 2017. Photos by Stephen Shaver/UPI

Some other sanctuaries in the Sichuan province have been accused of for their mistreating pandas.

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There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, though none is a panda. This is said to be because the love for the panda is fairly recent.

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Chinese people used to hunt pandas for their fur and for sport and in ancient times even feared them as monsters. That changed in 1957 when Chi-Chi, a giant panda originally moving to the United States, found his home at the London Zoo. The newly formed World Wildlife Fund, based in London, was still lacking a logo, and after falling in love with Chi-Chi they made the panda its official logo in 1961.

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China designated giant pandas as a protected species in 1962. The first captive-bred panda cub was born in 1963, and poaching in China was criminalized in 1987.

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