Wanted: Panda Caretakers at $32K, Plus Incidentals
It is not a job you see listed often, if ever, in the newspaper or online wanted ads, but the job of caretaker for pandas could be yours.
Officials at the Bifengxia Panda Center in Ya'an, Sichuan province, are offering a 200,000 yuan (about $32,000) salary, the use of an SUV for a year and free working meals and accommodations for the right person to help take care of the center's pandas, according to local media.
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China Daily reports that the job is being called the "Chinese version of the Great Barrier Reef caretaker," a reference to the national treasure in Australia that is what pandas are to China.
The Bifengxia Panda Center opened in 2003 as a branch of the China Conservation & Research Center for the Giant Panda, (CCRCGP) Wolong Nature Center, under the country's Department of Forestry, according to Pandas International (PI), a nonprofit devoted to saving the panda.
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The center includes around 988 acres of land for the pandas to roam and already employs a trained staff on hand for the pandas 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to PI.
"We want more people to pay attention to giant pandas' protection work and participate," said Heng Yi, a publicity official at the center, according to China Daily.
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Further details on the day-to-day responsibilities of the job were not reported on but interested parties can apply at Sohu.com.
China Daily reports that recruitment activities will happen in major China cities like Shanghai and Beijing through July 15.