A sick and aged wild giant panda has been recovering under the care by experts in the past six days in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

The sick wild giant panda was found in the Hongkou National Nature Reserve in Longxi County of Sichuan. After 6 days’ cure and 9 days’ living with its breeders, the giant panda, named Long Long by its breeders, built a good relationship with its human rescuers.

“It knows that it was rescued by us, so it is friendly to us,” said a breeder in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

On April 16, the sick Long Long was found by patrolling guards of the nature reserve in the mountain. More than seven experts of the research base in Chengdu rushed to the scene, and rescued Long Long back to the base.

“Long Long suffered from shock twice the day when it was taken to the base. Moreover, its heart rate gradually declined to only over 20 times per minute. That means Long Long was in great danger,” said Lan Jingchao, director of the veterinary hospital of the base.

The 17-year-old panda weighed only 60 kilograms, 50 kilograms less than a healthy male giant panda.

Experts then diagnosed that Long Long was suffering from parasitic diseases.

“Long Long has defecated out about 200 roundworms like these ones after taking medicine. Besides, we diagnosed that tick parasites are still living on the surface of its body,” said Lan.

At the beginning, Lan said, Long Long refused to take any food and water for six days and nights after it had been taken back to the base.

The rescue team gave Long Long fluid infusion while trying to remove those parasites to keep it alive.

After six days’ of rescue, the experts were encouraged by a minute change of the panda.

“Long Long bit a bamboo shoot slightly at several attempts and finally bit a tiny piece out of it. I felt very excited at that moment and tears rolled down from my eyes. Long Long tried the second and the third time. I felt that there is hope,” said Lan.

Although Long Long’s life is out of danger, it is still weak with poor liver function and serious anemia. In other words, its recovery has a long way to go, Lan said.

Click here to see the CCTV movie.

Go to Lan Jingchao’s blog to see more pictures of Long Long.

Source: Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
Source: CCTV
Source: http://roll.sohu.com/20120507/n342573373.shtml

Anton Baotic from Vienna, Austria investigated the acoustic communication in newborn giant pandas in Bifengxia. Now he is looking for more funding for his my PhD acoustic comparative studies on different mammalian non-human species. You can help him by voting for him on the stipendium.de website.

***** DEADLINE May 11 *****

Please support this research and take one minute to vote for Anton using the link below. Go to the website and click on the green voting-button to registrate. Afterwards click once again to vote, that’s it! Please spread the words and share it with your friends, thanks!

http://www.stipendium.de/bewerber-2011/2908-finanzielle-forschungsunterstuzung-financial-research-support

I’ve been always fascinated by acoustic communication in animals. However, animal vocalization is not directly comparable with human speech. At this, bioacoustics becomes an outstanding research discipline for young scientists like me, to gain knowledge and understanding of acoustic communication in animals in order to contribute to nature and wildlife conservation.
The giant panda is threatened by poaching, fragmentation and habitat loss, and is classified as an endangered species by the IUCN Red list. For this reason, breeding programs and research are indispensable to secure the long-term survival of this species.
In the course of my master thesis I investigated the acoustic communication in newborn giant pandas at the Bifengxia breeding and research centre in Sichuan, China (GPS: 30°4’20.63‘‘N, 102°59’25.67‘‘E). This study gives first insights into the vocal repertoire, ontogeny and function in infant giant pandas. However, many questions still need answers, e.g. auditory developmental processes.
For my PhD studies I would be glad to conduct acoustic comparative studies on different mammalian non-human species. Unfortunately, research and high quality equipment in bioacoustics is costly. Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity provided by the Absolventa-stipend to get some financial relief.
I would be happy for every vote I can get!

Thank you!
Anton Baotic

The China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province moved giant panda Tao Tao to its new home Thursday morning for the third and final stage of wild training, a key stage for releasing it into the wild.

Accompanied by his mother Cao Cao, Tao Tao was sent to the 240,000-square-meter third stage training enclosure located in an area at about 2,000 meters above sea level in mountain forest. The forest vegetation and geographical feature are similar to those of the second stage training base.

At the new training base, researchers have installed 180 surveillance cameras with 360-degree coverage, which can give signals immediately after capturing the videos of Tao Tao.

Tao Tao was move to the new home by being placed into a cage, before he was transported, and released into the new training field.

Two special cages were set at the exit of the habitat for Tao Tao and Cao Cao. Keepers wearing like pandas first guided Cao Cao to her cage with fresh bamboo shoots.

But it took about half an hour to lure Tao Tao into his cage as he has grown up with little human interaction and is highly skeptical.

Tao Tao was born on Aug. 3, 2010, weighing in at 205 grams, at a semi-wild panda training center in Hetaoping. At Hetaoping he was raised with as little human interaction as possible. In February 2011, Tao Tao and Cao Cao were transferred to a separate enclosure to undergo the second stage wild training at the Wolong Nature Reserve, where Tao Tao learned several basic survival skills from his mother, such as climbing and gathering food.

During the third stage, Tao Tao will learn to recognize and elude dangers and also learn to recognize his companion animals.

“We plan to use the urine, sound or some models of some of panda’s natural enemies to stimulate Tao Tao during the training. If he is not afraid, we’ll then find some other ways to make him feel uncomfortable and hide from possible dangers,” said Huang Yan, deputy chief engineer of the center.

Zhang Hemin, director of the center, said if Tao Tao can survive in the wild after the training, the research center will continue to train other pandas in the same novel method before releasing them to the wild for the sake of genetic diversity, and ultimately achieve the goal of protecting pandas living in the wild.

“So we do pin a lot of hope on Tao Tao,” said Zhang.

According to the center, there are 1,596 giant pandas living in the wild in China, in addition to 312 in captivity.

Click here for the movie of Tao Tao & Cao Cao’s move.

Source: CCTV
Source: CCRCGP

On March 27, 2012, LeoUU, was at the Shanghai Zoo. She took some pictures of Zhuang Mei who catched a bird. LeoUU thinks it was a sparrow, and the two other pandas, Min Min and A Ling, didn’t want to have anything to do with the bird… But Zhuang Mei reminds us to the fact that pandas are carnivores and that, in the wild, they sometimes eat small animals.

Source: LeoUU’s blog.

Duo Duo and Ya Xiang have been moved from Bifengxia to the Zoo in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province.

Duo Duo, You You’s daughter born in 2006 in Wolong, was at the Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo with Cui Cui, they left on April 5, 2012 to go back to Sichuan.

Ya Xiang, born at the Chengdu Base in 2001, his mother is Ya Ya and his father is Ha Lan. He was recently transferred to Bifengxia as part of an exchange between Bifengxia and Chengdu.

It has been 11 years since the Shijiazhuang Zoo had giant pandas!

Source: http://sjz.yzdsb.com.cn/system/2012/04/28/011695960.shtml
Source: http://roll.sohu.com/20120427/n341784767.shtml

A giant panda raised by the Lanzhou Zoo returned home on Tuesday night after spending two year’s medical leave in Xi’an of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

The giant panda, named Lanbao, weighed 63.4 kilograms and stood 65 centimeters upon its return, a status of his healthy condition.

“After receiving medical treatment in Xi’an, his health condition has turned much better. Moreover, the set time for medical treatment is up, so we got him back,” said Xiao Jinde, chief feeder at the Lanzhou Zoo.

“We’ve been preparing for his come back, such as sanitizing his bedroom, and contacting our bamboo suppliers. He will love the bamboo, because it’s fresh,” Xiao Jinde added.

Lanbao might need some time to get used to his own “home”, as he has been gone for quite a long time. Lanbao along with his brother, Lanzai, are very likely to meet Lanzhou residents during the May Day holiday period.

The brothers were sent to be raised at the Lanzhou Zoo when they were aged one. Unlike his own brother, Lanbao was weak and often fell sick. He was sent to Xi’an for better medical treatment in 2010.

Source: CCTV

The National Zoo’s Giant panda breeding season began this year when Mei Xiang, went into estrus over the weekend of April 28-29, 2012. Li Desheng from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong, and National Zoo scientists and veterinarians performed an artificial insemination Sunday night after they determined no competent natural breeding had occurred between Mei Xiang and male giant panda, Tian Tian. Li and the National Zoo’s panda team will perform another artificial insemination this evening. The National Zoo’s twitter feed (@NationalZoo) will have live updates of the procedure with the hashtag #pandaAI. Did you miss the tweets? Relive it here!

Sunday, April 29, 2012, while under general anesthesia, Mei Xiang was inseminated with thawed semen collected in 2005 from Tian Tian. Scientists determined that semen collected from Tian Tian while he was under general anesthesia Sunday night was not high enough quality to use for an artificial insemination. Zoo staff will continue to monitor Mei Xiang’s hormone levels in the coming months and conduct ultrasounds to see if she is pregnant.

The Zoo received approval for its breeding plans from the China Wildlife and Conservation Association and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which monitors giant panda research programs in the United States. Desheng came to assist the National Zoo panda team in accordance with the Giant Panda Cooperative Research and Breeding Agreement through 2015. The Zoo’s pandas have one offspring, Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 but he now resides in China.

Source: National Zoo

A well-preserved skull of a giant panda found at a pit in Dudu Town, Fengdu County of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality recently. The discovery may change the history of the giant panda population.

“According to archaeological experts, activities of giant pandas in the Three Gorges Reservoir area can be dated back to 6,000-7,000 years ago, when the globe was not as warm as it is today.” Now, since the skull found “belongs to the Late Pleistocene Epoch”, it means that we can date the presence of the giant pandas back to at least 11,700 years ago…

Source: Beijing Shots

This Sunday 29th April will see the world premiere of Panda Suite by Eddie McGuire, a unique musical partnership between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and Children’s Classic Concerts (CCC).

To be unveiled live at The Macrobert in Stirling, the piece of music celebrates iconic giant pandas Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang (Sunshine) and their arrival in Scotland from China

Specially commissioned by CCC and RZSS, with investment from Creative Scotland, the music reflects both the musical traditions of China and Scotland.

Panda Suite is written and performed by award-winning Scottish composer Eddie McGuire, who will be joined by virtuoso percussionists and Children’s Classic Concerts’ presenters Owen Gunnell and Oliver Cox, and the choir of The Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville Junior School.

Comprising three movements, the music describes the pandas’ journey from China to Scotland. The first movement, ‘Pandas Dreaming: Journey to the West’ features a Chinese wooden flute and bamboo chimes to evoke bamboo rustling and bird song in the remote mountainous regions of China. The second movement, ‘Bonnie Pandas Welcome Here’, is a song for children’s choir that introduces elements of Scottish music as the children welcome the pandas to their new home in Edinburgh. The third and final movement is a lively and rhythmic ‘Panda Dance’.

Manus Fullerton, Chair of the RZSS, said:

“Creating a piece of music that embraced the sounds, culture and traditional instruments of Scotland and China was a wonderful way to commemorate such a momentous event for Scotland. We feel Panda Suite is a glorious representation of the magnificent symbols of endangered animal conservation – the giant pandas – that now reside at Edinburgh Zoo. We hope that for years to come this music will be played at concerts and downloaded from our website to mark this very special achievement.”

Oliver Cox, Artistic Director and presenter of Children’s Classic Concerts, continued:

“We are all delighted with Panda Suite. Eddie has created a wonderfully evocative piece that we know will appeal to everyone. It is a fantastic piece to play and we are really looking forward to performing it live on Sunday and we are sure it is going to become a firm favourite with Children’s Classic Concerts fans – including two special furry ones who may put in an appearance at the concert!”

Panda Suite will be performed as part of Bang on!, the latest offering in CCC’s series of touring concerts.

Bang on! features the percussion – from melodic marimbas to a bewildering array of apparatus – all presented in Children’s Classic Concerts’ inimitable family-friendly style by Owen and Olly with a little bit of help from their best mates Chris Woodham and Sam Staunton.

As always at Children’s Classic Concerts there will be amazing tunes, lots of laughs and audience participation – and oh yes, and there will be giant pandas too.

The performance commences at 3pm on Sunday 29th April at the Macrobert in Stirling. Tickets cost £6 for children and £10 for adults and are available from the Macrobert Box Office on 01786 466666 or online at www.macrobert.org

Source: Edinburgh Zoo
Photo Credit: Karen Gordon Photography

A female panda has taken on the role as mother and nurser for seven cubs in southwest China’s Chengdu Panda Base, as their birth mothers are engaged in artificial insemination.

Ya Ya, now 22-year-old, almost 90 years of age in human terms, has been breastfeeding and taking care of seven cubs for nearly a year. Ya Ya was named after the 1990 Asian Games (“Ya Yun” in Chinese) in Beijing, as she was born just days before its opening.

The loving mother has continually given great care and affection to cubs as she herself has given birth to 13 babies, of whom 12 survived. She always encourages her cubs to find apples thrown in by the keepers from time to time.

The baby pandas will be weaned off in four months, when they turn two years old, according to staff members at the panda base.

“One of the benefits is to ensure each of the cubs gets enough milk. In addition, they can learn a lot of survival skills with their mother, which not only benefits the cubs’ growth and health, but improves the quality of the whole species in the long term,” said Lan Jingchao, president of the veterinary hospital at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The birth mothers of the cubs, chosen to artificially conceive in their mating season between March and May, are expected to give birth between August and October this year.

Giant pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20.

Click here for CCTV‘s movie about Ya Ya & the 2010 cubs in Chengdu.