The central government will present another pair of pandas to
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) to mark the 10th
anniversary of its return to the motherland, the State Forestry
Administration (SFA) said in Beijing yesterday.
The pandas are expected to be ready to face the Hong Kong public
in the first half of this year, said SFA spokesperson Cao
Qingyao.
Cao said the SFA would select a pair of "lively, healthy and
young" pandas for Hong Kong.
The Chinese mainland presented the first pair of pandas, An An
and Jia Jia, to Hong Kong in 1999. The Hong Kong SAR government
requested a second pair of pandas last September. The State Council
approved the request two months later.
Senior officials from the SFA visited An An and Jia Jia last
year. Now aged 18 and 26, the two pandas reside at the SAR's Ocean
Park theme park and have fully integrated into the local
community.
Cao said that another two pandas that had been specially chosen
last year to go to Taiwan were in great health and just waiting to
be allowed onto the island.
"All the preparations are completed. We hope Taiwan will take an
open attitude so the pandas can travel to their new home at an
early date and meet their public," Cao said.
"A lot of citizens and groups in Taiwan have already extended a
warm welcome to the pair of pandas, named Tuan Tuan and Yuan
Yuan."
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species
and is found only in China. An estimated 1,000 live in Southwest
China's Sichuan Province and Northwest China's Shaanxi and Gansu
provinces.
Last year was a strong year for giant panda reproduction.
The 217 giant pandas that have been bred in captivity in China
gave birth to 34 cubs through artificial insemination last year,
SFA figures showed. Thirty of the cubs survived.
Both the number of cub births and the survival rate set
records.
(China Daily January 11, 2007)
