China releases captive pandas to boost wild population
2024-06-17
A captive panda in Ya'an, Sichuan province. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/China Daily]
Twelve captive pandas have been released into the wild in China since 2003 to increase the wild panda population.
Wu Daifu, an expert in reintroducing captive pandas into the wild at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province, said 10 are still alive, and the survival rate is very high among large wild animals released into the wild.
Visitors take photos of a captive panda in Ya'an, Sichuan province. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/China Daily]
By the end of last year, China was home to 728 captive pandas and 1,900 wild pandas.
The count indicates that the captive panda population is now self-sustaining.
China's fourth panda census, released in 2015, showed that 22 of the 33 groups of wild pandas found in the census faced the danger of extinction.
Releasing captive pandas is essential for growing the wild panda population, said Zhang Hemin, chief expert of the research center.
Zhang Hemin, chief expert at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, shares China's efforts to release captive pandas into the wild with a Western journalist last Wednesday. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/China Daily]
Wu Daifu, an expert in reintroducing captive pandas into the wild at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province, talks about the topic with Japanese journalists last Wednesday. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/China Daily]
