Despite their superstar status today, Pandas have spent most of history in relative obscurity. Living in remote, bamboo covered hills, they were rarely seen, and even more rarely recorded.

However with the explosion of westerners entering the country in the late Qing dynasty, came hunters, 'zoologists' and others interested in killing or capturing Pandas. These interlopers would for better or worse, catapult the Panda onto the international scene, and for a brief period they could be found in Zoos across the world. 

In this first of a 2 part series, we discuss the history of Pandas from time immemorial to the dawn of the People's Republic of China (1949).