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Giant pandas in captivity are to be released from their cages as Chinese experts train them to live in "semi-wild" conditions to prepare for a return to their natural habitat.

Zhang Guiquan, deputy director of the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, said such training courses would be central to panda protection in the near future.

Two fields providing semi-wild conditions have been established at the Wolong Nature Reserve in the southwestern Sichuan Province, home to more than 80 artificially-bred pandas.

Natural swimmers and tree-climbers, pandas can enjoy both exercises in the fields. Covering about 1,000 square meters, one of the fields similar to the pandas habitat faces a brook and a hill, but is still surrounded by walls.

In addition to their staple diet of bamboo, the field has large trees and bushes. Pandas can also find fallen tree trunks and apples as they would in the wild.

Zhang said those which had lived in the semi-wild conditions showed better appetites and improved health than those in cages. "Their reproductive capability is expected to be better as well," he said.

A large field on the mountain at Wolong has also been created to host more pandas preparing to return to nature, according to Zhang.

The State Forestry Administration has built the country's biggest panda base in Ya'an, a city of Sichuan. The base covering 400 hectares is located between 1,100 and 1,800 meters above sea level to help the study of panda behavior at different altitudes.

Zhang admitted they were very cautious about training pandas for a return to the wild, because "it's a huge project."

(People's Daily March 14, 2003)