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A panel of panda experts has not only found the largest groups of pandas two days in a row but also witnessed fighting for mates in two groups in the Foping State Nature Reserve in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
Yong Yange, a noted panda expert with the Foping State Nature Reserve, went on an inspection tour in the reserve recently with his colleagues.
"We heard fierce cries from pandas in the hills one day when we were making an inspection tour in the reserve," he said.
When they arrived at the site, a slope about 1,800 meters above sea level, they found six pandas, four males, one female and a two-year-old cub.
"All of us were excited to see six pandas grouped together in the wild," he said and gave his description of the fighting.
Two males were fighting and biting each other fiercely, roaring from time to time, while the female crouched in a Chinese pine, crying out constantly as if to cheer the fighters on.
The other two males, who appeared exhausted and injured from a previous battle, were observing from a nearby stone platform. Despite the raging battle, the cub was sleeping peacefully beneath a tree.
The duel lasted half an hour, with the loser leaping onto a tree in hot pursuit of the winner.
The female then came down from the tree and passionately embraced her "lover", the winner of the duel, and licked the bleeding face and nose of her "husband" with her pink tongue. After a moment of tenderness marked by cries of passion, the two lovers finally began mating.
Yong and his colleagues were hiding behind trees observing and video-recording the entire duel and mating process.
Early in the morning the following day, Yong and his colleagues set out for the site to collect environmental data. However, when they were half way there, they again heard cries from pandas on a slope about 2 kilometers northeast of the previous day's site.
They rushed to the site and found five pandas, four males and one female. The same type of battle ensued until the final victor won the female and mated with her.
Through careful on-site observation and repeated viewing of the tapes and pictures, Yong and his colleagues decided that the second group of five pandas was not the same pandas they had seen fighting the day before.
The most distinguishing feature lay in the fact that the female was much larger than the female viewed the previous day. In addition, her fur was much lighter and cleaner, and therefore more beautiful. The second day's winner was also apparently different from that of the previous day.
Yong and his colleagues witnessed wild pandas fighting for mates for two consecutive days and took more than 100 pictures and a 90-minute-long video recording, collecting very rare materials and data for the study of the reproduction of pandas in the wild.
(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2003)
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