Taiwan

Taiwan may keep panda cubs: mainland spokesman

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-23 13:09

BEIJING - Taiwan will be able to keep any offspring of two pandas given as gifts by the Chinese mainland in 2008, a mainland government spokesman said Wednesday.

"I believe the cubs of Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan will be kept in Taiwan," said Yang Yi, the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, at a regular press conference.

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The Taipei Zoo announced on February 11 that staff had artificially inseminated Yuan Yuan, the female, after Tuan Tuan showed no interest in mating.

If the efforts proved successful, which panda experts believe is likely, the cubs will be the first pandas born on the island.

Reproduction of captive giant pandas has long been a problem, so artificial insemination is common.

Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered animals. An estimated 1,590 pandas live in the wild on the mainland, mostly in the mountains of Sichuan and the northwestern Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. About 200 giant pandas have been bred in captivity.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan (when linked, the names mean "reunion" in Chinese) have been a major attraction since they arrived at Taipei Zoo in December 2008.

Yang said Wednesday the mainland would receive a pair of indigenous Taiwan goats and a pair of spotted deer as gifts from the island on April 16.

The animals would live in Weihai, in the eastern Shandong province, after crossing the Taiwan Strait.