Many problems facing the endangered giant panda are yet to be solved, despite the remarkable progress China has made in protecting the animal, an audience at a seminar was told yesterday.
Chen Yucun, director of the Fuzhou Giant Panda Research Center in the capital city of East China's Fujian Province, said that during the past five decades much emphasis has been placed on breeding and insufficient attention has been paid to research on the animal's dietary needs.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the China Association of Sciences and Technology in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chen said 280 giant pandas have been bred by artificial insemination, of which only 59 survived three years after birth.
None of the following issues about giant panda breeding have been dealt with satisfactorily: the development of an advanced and reliable ovulation monitoring method, the best temperature to keep giant panda's semen and the development of a good pregnancy diagnosis technique.
Chen, who was involved in the protection of relocated giant pandas in southern China, has discovered the make-up of the animal's milk.
"We have not been very successful in terms of breeding baby giant pandas due to a lack of in-depth research on the nutrition and antibodies the animal needs," said Chen, adding that until now, no single completely artificially bred giant panda has survived two years after birth.
He said a national committee should be set up to co-ordinate national efforts to protect the giant panda, and more efforts should be made to solve the problems mentioned above. More funding support and research is needed.
China is home to about 1,000 wild giant pandas.
(People’s Daily)
