Phase 2
The years between 2007 and 2010 were spent carefully re-evaluating the reintroduction plan. Scientists looked at the sex of the panda, the area where the pandas were to be released, whether to release males and females at the same time, the amount of time the pandas had spent in the program, and many other factors.
On June 20, 2010, CCRCGP of Wolong held a meeting in Dujiangyan to start “The 2nd Phase of the Captive Panda Wild Training Project”. Experts and management people in areas related to panda behavior, ecology, nutrition, genetics, disease prevention and control from all over China were invited to help with the overall planning, contents and goals, experiment methods, and selection of individual pandas for wild training etc.
It was agreed that pandas in the reintroduction program should have very limited contact with humans so that no dependence on an human “provider” would develop and fear of humans would. This is when the plan to have humans wear panda suits when interacting with reintroduction pandas developed.