MANY PANDA TWINS FLOURISH AT NEW YA'AN BREEDING CENTER

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENGDU 000295 SIPDIS STATE PASS FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE/CITES E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV TBIO CH SUBJECT: MANY PANDA TWINS FLOURISH AT NEW YA'AN BREEDING CENTER CHENGDU 00000295 001.2 OF 002 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Sixteen baby pandas were born this year at the Ya'an Panda Breeding Center, successor to the earthquake-devastated Wolong Panda Breeding Center, which will reopen in 2012. Deputy Chief Engineer Huang Yan of the China Panda Preservation Research Center, who is the science and engineering director for the Ya'an Panda Breeding Center, said a third panda breeding center will be built in Dujiangyan, a western section of Chengdu's municipal region. All baby pandas born this year -- half of them twins -- have survived since the center learned how to keep switching the twins back and forth so that the mother panda would feed both of them. The captive panda breeding population will be limited to 500. The journal "Nature" will soon publish the panda genome. End summary. Panda Mothers Tricked into Raising Twins -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Sixteen baby pandas were born to the 91 panda refugees from the Wolong Giant Panda Captive Breeding Centre at the 54-hectare Ya'an Panda Captive Breeding Centre, a two-hour drive from Chengdu. All the baby pandas have survived so far: the Ya'an center learned how to trick mother pandas by switching babies regularly back and forth so both twins were properly fed, Huang said. At the panda breeding center, one in two births are panda twins, a rate scientists say is probably much higher than in the wild for unknown reasons. Science director Huang said that Ya'an does not have the wide-open spaces of Wolong, the Ya'an Center faces the considerably expense of buying two tons of bamboo every day from local farmers. Bundles of bamboo awaiting pick-up line the road for miles on the way to the panda captive breeding center located outside of Ya'an. Yang Huanming, Director of the Genomics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told ConGenOff that Huang Yan is the science and engineering leader of the Chinese captive panda-breeding program, even though his title is only Assistant Chief Engineer and the Chinese government has put several people above him in the PRC panda bureaucracy. Panda Breeding Success Raises Prospect of Panda Family Planning -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Director Huang said that at an international conference on captive breeding of pandas, scientists decided that a captive population of 500 pandas would ensure sufficient genetic diversity so that pandas will be able to reproduce indefinitely. Genealogies of captive pandas minimize inbreeding. Currently the captive panda population in China is about 190 pandas. The Chinese captive panda-breeding program hopes eventually to re-introduce pandas back into the wild, although some scientists are skeptical that this can succeed. One method being considered for captive pandas to be born in a large enclosure and have minimal contact with people so as to better prepare them to return to the wild. Science director Huang has trips planned to both Japan and Australia. Japanese pandas, Huang recently learned, are now going into heat twice a year. He did not know why. ¶4. (SBU) Baby pandas born to pandas lent to foreign zoos also belong to China according to the standard panda agreement. (Note: Currently, the Smithsonian National Zoo is negotiating with China and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the mechanics of the return of Tai Shan, born in Washington, D.C. in ¶2005. End note.) One UK scientist commented a few months ago that the panda might be at an "evolutionary cul-de-sac": it has a short intestine that prevents it from absorbing nutrients efficiently yet it is specialized at eating bamboo, which has little nutritional value, so it must eat large quantities of it. That scientist was promptly pilloried in the Chinese press as an insensitive ignoramus. Foreign panda enthusiasts, including many from Germany, visit the Ya'an Panda Breeding Center. The panda center raises some funds by selling the right to name pandas. Wolong Panda Breeding Center Will Re-open in Three Years; Additional Center for Dujiangyan -------------- -------------- CHENGDU 00000295 002.2 OF 002 ¶5. (SBU) Science director Huang said that Wolong Giant Panda Captive Breeding Centre, which he led at the time of the May 12th Sichuan earthquake, would reopen in 2012 after earthquake damage is repaired. A third center at Qingchengshan at Dujiangyan, a western section of Chengdu city, will also be built. Huang said that it is clear that it is too risky to have just one panda breeding center. ¶6. (SBU) Huang told about his experiences as director of Wolong panda center when pandas, staff and foreign visitors were isolated for a week after the earthquake. The Wolong center was out of contact with the outside world until a Chinese aircraft dropped a satellite telephone to the centre several days after the quake. A road link to the outside world was not clear until one week after the quake. No people were hurt, although Huang himself had a close brush with a large boulder that rolled down from the hills. One panda was killed and a second panda was missing. Panda Genome Will Be Published in "Nature" -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The UK scientific journal Nature will publish an article on the giant panda genome by an international team led by Beijing Genomics Institute at Shenzhen. The genome of 2008 Olympic games mascot Jing Jing, a panda at the Chengdu base was sequenced. The Tibetan Antelope will be the next endangered species to be sequenced by the Shenzhen team. BROWN