A somewhat biased view on China…
As you already know, the Panda is on of the Five Olympic Mascots. The Pandas, one of the world’s critically-endangered species, is really important in China. Therfore, I MUST give you the status of the artificial breeding of Pandas in China!
They started this project back in the 1960’s and since then, 2005 is the best year with 25 babies. They artificially inseminated 38 pandas in Spring and 25 babies were born in Fall. Out of them 21 survived. This is a big improvement compared to the last few years with 9 babies in 2000, 12 in 2001, 10 in 2002 and 15 in 2003.
This project is really important because the Pandas in captivity show little instinctive behavior, especially sexual desire, essential for natural mating and conception.
In 2004 there were 1,590 giant pandas living in the wild - in mountainous areas in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces - and another 161 kept in captivity at worldwide zoos.
Source
Xin Hua Net, 2005-11-17
[powered by WordPress.]
[hosted by TodayInChina.]
December 1st, 2005 at 5:48 pm
[…] I now that all of you are interested in news about Pandas. As related before, 25 baby pandas were born in Fall and 21 survived. Well, on the 1th of November, 16 of them gathered for a happy year-end reunion at the China Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan Province. […]