China to Send Pandas Back to Wild in 2005

China plans to send pen-reared giant pandas back into the wild in 2005 for the first time in history, according to Zhang Hemin, director of the Chinese Panda Protection Research Center. The 2005 sending-back project will be held within the Wolong Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province.

The second phase of China Pandas Park Project, aiming at helping pandas regain survival skills in the reservation, is currently being designed according to resources from the center. About forty or fifty pen-reared pandas will be living in a natural half-breeding environment after the establishment of the project next year. The aim is for all pen-reared pandas to live in the wild and to diversify breeding among the pandas. The first phase of China Pandas Park Project has already been finished with a capacity of holding 10 pandas in a half-breeding environment.

Zhang specially pointed out that sending the pandas back to the fields is not the same as the general concept of sending animals back into the wild. The Natural Panda Reservation will become a natural environment for the pandas to live in and enrich their species.

There are less than 1,000 pandas in China at present, with 40 percent living in nature reserves, and about 110 pandas being artificially bred.

��To rescue and protect pandas we could not depend on merely artificial reproduction techniques. It is improper to set increasing numbers as the final goal,��commented Zhang,��the pandas should be sent back to the wild."

People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/