The Beast in the Clouds is a true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s sons and their 1929 Himalayan expedition to prove the existence of the panda bear to the western world. The Himalayas – a snow-capped mountain range that hides treacherous glacier crossings, raiders poised  to attack unsuspecting travellers, with one of the most beautiful and fragile ecosystems in the world.

In 1972 only other countries that had pandas were the USSR, North Korea and Britain. London’s best-known Panda, Chi Chi had been acquired outside the diplomatic system in 1958, when an Austrian dealer had exchanged some African big game for a young female panda which was shipped to Frankfurt. He planned to sell her to an American Zoo, but the State Department blocked the sale on the grounds that she fell under the embargo on Chinese goods. The dealer leased her to various European zoos, until London Zoo acquired her permanently. In the aftermath of Nixon’s trip, China gave pandas to Japan, West Germany, Spain, France, the UK and Mexico. Thus panda became a new diplomatic gold standard, its exchange value was difficult to quantify.

Panda’s who are technically vegetarians, have powerful teeth that can chew things a lot tougher than bamboo, as one conservationist described watching a panda eat an aluminium pan and documented the aluminium nuggets that were excreted a few hours later. Pandas are not as cuddly as some people think, as they have powerful teeth. In September 2006, a 35-year-old man jumped into an enclosure at Beijing Zoo and tried to hug Gu Gu ,  a six-year-old male panda. Gu Gu responded by sinking his canines into the man’s leg and refusing to let go, even after the man tried in desperation to bite him back. Zookeepers sprayed Gu Gu with water and the man was eventually released, but the injuries required skin grafts.

In 1929,  Ted (38) and Kermit (36) Roosevelt, sons of the former US president, had killed more than two thousand animal on an expedition to Central Asia. Once back in the US they tried to rejoin everyday life, only for the strange but familiar voices began urging them once more to seek out lonely places where food is scant, travel by foot, and danger a constant bedfellow. They ventured into the uncharted country between China and Tibet. The prime purpose of the expedition was to collect flora for Chicago’s Field Museum and also shoot a panda. They arrive Sichuan province, on the frontier of Tibet, in a landscape covered with thick bamboo forests shrouded in mist, after arriving in Bombay by ship, and trekking through thick forests and up mountains with a small army of porters and guides, stopping occasionally to pop an endangered river otter with a .22 rifle.  Against all odds they arrived in a region they called Yehil, where they’d been told there were pandas, and contacted four local hunters from a small village. After following the trial for two and half hours they arrived at a snowy clearing in the bamboo with several fresh panda droppings, pale green turds of undigested bamboo and mucus that smelled of grass. The men split up and searched the areas. Mokhta Lone, the brother’s Kashmiri guide, who had travelled with them from Bombay, was by Kermit’s side when one of the hunters beckoned him towards a giant spruce. A panda’s head suddenly emerged. Kermit waited to Ted to catch up so they could take aim together. The panda was hit by both the brother’s shots, and floundered in the snow towards Mokhta. It fell and crawled away, but only got 75 yards before it died.

Nathalia Holt details in The Beast in the Clouds, shooting big game was Roosevelt family tradition. 

The Beast In the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers Deadly Quest to Find the Mythic Giant Panda by Nathalia Holt, Atria , £10.99, 288 pages.