ECOWATCH
Captive bounty
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Once the symbol of the most endangered species, the giant panda is now on the path to safety in China. PALLAVI AIYAR
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The new breeding techniques have been so successful that the Chengdu base is now facing a different kind of problem: overcrowding.
Photo: Pallavi Aiyar
With all the playfulness of a litter of kittens, half a dozen giant pandas in the pen swat at each other in between mouthfuls of bamboo. These are sub-adults — about a year-old, part of a generation of panda baby boomers — born last year.
The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, where the cubs are on display, boasted a record 12 newborn animals in 2006, all of whom survived. To put this number in perspective, the total number of captive panda births in China in 2005 was 12 and only nine in 2000.
The Chengdu base, China’s second largest breeding centre for pandas, was not alone in enjoying a bounty of babies last year. Countrywide, 34 cubs were born in captivity in 2006, 30 of which survived bringing China’s current population of captive-bred giant pandas to 220. With so many animals being born, experts say that the panda — for decades the symbol of the world’s most endangered species — is well on the path out of critical danger.
Improved breeding techniques
The Chinese Government has set a target of 300 for the population of captive-born pandas over the next few years. This, according to Hou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chengdu base, will be enough to allow the captive-born panda population to be self-sustaining and thus guarantee species survival for several decades to come.
Hou explains that the improved breeding and fostering techniques have enabled the burgeoning panda population at the Chengdu base. The techniques have advanced to the point where more than 60 per cent of female pandas in captivity now give birth regularly, up from a mere 33 per cent in the 1990s. The survival rate of cubs has also more than doubled over the last decade to around 70 per cent.
In captivity, pandas are known for their low sex drive and shyness, which makes breeding them challenging. The process is more complicated by the fact that female pandas have an extremely short — one to five day — window of fertility each year. In the quest to increase the panda population, researchers at the Chengdu base have resorted to trying every trick in the book including feeding Viagra to the males, showing potential couples “panda porn” (videos of animals mating in the forest) and artificial insemination.
Combined with a switch to a more nutritious diet — while pandas in the wild subsist almost wholly on a diet of bamboo, those in captivity require nutritional supplements — the new breeding techniques have been so successful that the Chengdu base is now facing a different kind of problem: overcrowding.
Space was the least of the base’s worries when it was established back in 1987 with six pandas. Today the centre is bursting to capacity with a 66-strong population that is constantly being added to. According to Liang Kui Xin, the head keeper at the base, it costs 50,000 Yuan ($6,600) per adult panda a year for food and medical expenses alone. Thus for the Chengdu centre, the growing animal population has led to the fresh challenge of a concomitant rise in the budget. While around half the centre’s financing is met by government funds, the remaining 50 per cent must be generated by the base itself.
Photo: Pallavi Aiyar
Baby boomers: At the captive breeding centre in Chengdu.
Luckily for the base, the panda, a charismatic animal, is able to generate considerable funds through visitor’s fees. In 2006, the Chengdu centre alone entertained 300,000 visitors, each of whom paid a 30 Yuan ($4) entry ticket.
The commercial spin-offs from the pandas do not stop at entry fees. Once inside, the tourists have the choice of paying an additional 1000 Yuan ($130) to be photographed holding a one-year-old cub. According to Liang, an average of 30-40 visitors takes advantage of this offer daily.
The latest innovation in the quest to raise finances is the manufacture and sale of products using panda droppings. Each panda produces a daily average of 20-30 kg of poop, largely consisting of undigested bamboo. The Chengdu base is now attempting to convert this into paper, photo frames and other souvenirs to be made available for purchase at the visitor’s shop.
Most lucrative activity
But the most commercially lucrative panda-related activity is the loan of captive-bred animals to foreign zoos, which pay up to $1 million a year for the favour. More than 30 pandas are currently on loan outside China, around 10 from the Chengdu base alone.
China’s panda breeding centres have not been controversy-free. In recent years, they have come in for their fair share of criticism from wildlife activists who allege them to be a commercial diversion from the more important task of saving pandas in the wild. Hundreds of captive pandas put pressure on wild panda resources like bamboo, critics say, and serve no real purpose other than making money for the centres. The argument is that, rather than developing breeding centres, the government should focus on habitat protection for wild pandas that, unlike their captive cousins, breed relatively easily as long as they have sufficient forest cover.
Countering this criticism, Hou Rong is quick to point out that the money from panda loans abroad is, in fact, used for conservation efforts in the wild. None of it is spent on the base itself, she insists. Indeed, partly through the funds raised by its captive-panda population, China has made considerable progress in conserving wild pandas over the last couple of decades.
In the wild
According to Fan Zhiyong, species director for pandas at the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Beijing office, China today has 62 natural reserves for the animal, up from only 15 in 1989. The ban on logging for timber and provision of alternative livelihoods for villagers affected by the ban has contributed to a comeback for the giant panda.
Thus the animal currently numbers around 1,600 in the wild, up from an estimated 1,000 a decade ago. But, according to Hou, while wild pandas may no longer be critically endangered they remain under threat. So the captive breeding programme is a kind of “insurance” for the panda in the wild.Breeding centres like the one in Chengdu are thus working on training captive pandas for survival in the wild, in the hope of one day being able to introduce them into their natural habitats. Thus far, however, such re-wilding efforts have failed.
Last year the Wolong Panda Centre, a few hours north-west of Chengdu, released a captive-born panda called Xiang Xiang into the wild in China’s first such experiment. However, the bear was found dead earlier this year, as a result of injuries sustained during a fight with a wild panda.
Nonetheless, Fang from WWF believes that, given time, panda re-wilding is possible. Unlike tigers or other carnivores who it is notoriously difficult to teach hunting skills to in captivity, pandas mostly graze on bamboo, a process largely similar in captivity to that in the wild. The fact that Xiang Xiang survived almost a year in the wild before being killed, says Fang, only re-affirms his belief.
Back at the Chengdu base, nine baby pandas have already been born this year and several more are expected before the year-end. For the pandas frolicking in the play pen, space could soon become a commodity almost as valuable as bamboo.
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