Baby boom for giant pandas
2006-08-14 12:34
Beijing - China is enjoying a giant panda baby boom thanks to the nation's artificial breeding programme, with four sets of twins born this month and more cubs expected, state media reported on Monday.
Eleven cubs have been born this year, including the four sets of twins, Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Zhihe, head of the Chengdu Giant Panda Reproduction and Research Centre in Sichuan province, as saying.
"Chinese experts are expecting more than 20 panda cubs to be born this year. Now it seems it won't be difficult to achieve the goal," Zhang said.
Eryatou, aged 13, gave birth at the research centre to the 11th cub of the year - a female cub weighed in at 130g - on Sunday.
Among the others was a 218g male born on Monday last week at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Centre also in Sichuan.
The cub was the heaviest to have been born through China's artificial breeding programme, which began in the 1960s.
Meanwhile, the four sets twins were born in the space of just seven days, with the first cubs born on August 6.
"China has seen a baby boom of newborn panda cubs in recent days," Xinhua said.
The famously sexually inactive giant pandas are among the world's most endangered animals.
Their traditional homes have been the mountains of central and southern China, as well as Myanmar and Vietnam.
But their numbers have fallen to only around 1 590 in the wild, mostly in the mountains of Sichuan in China's southwest, according to Chinese estimates, as their natural habitats have been destroyed by humans.
Just over 180 more pandas are in research centres in China, with a handful of others around the world in zoos.