Society

Captive-bred panda gives birth in almost-wild fields

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-03 22:35

CHENGDU - A giant panda gave birth Tuesday to a male cub in a semi-wild training base in Southwest China. This marked the first time a captive-bred panda delivered a cub in a near-wild environment.

Cao Cao, the giant panda, gave birth without assistance early Tuesday morning in camera-monitored fields in Hetaoping, Wolong, the panda's hometown in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

The cub, weighing 205 grams, is healthy, staff at the base said.

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The semi-wild training base, which covers some 20,000 square meters, appears the same as wild fields only with hidden cameras to monitor panda activities.

Cao Cao was among four pregnant pandas selected from the Ya'an panda breeding base to give birth in the semi-wild environment, as researchers sought to have panda cubs born and raised in the wild.

This is part of a program from the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center to gradually release captive-bred giant pandas into the wild.

According to the plan, the four giant pandas, aged four to five, were expected to give birth to their cubs and live in the wild until the young are aged three to four, said Tang Chunxiang, an expert with the research center.

In 2008, pregnant Cao Cao was transferred to Ya'an giant panda base in Sichuan after the massive May 12 earthquake destroyed her home. She gave birth to a pair of male-female twins in August 2008.

Sichuan has experienced a panda "baby boom", with a total of nine cubs born in the past two weeks in the province.

About 1,600 giant pandas live in the wilds in China, mostly in Sichuan province and the northwestern provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu. Another 290 are in captive-bred programs worldwide, mainly in the Chinese mainland.