giant panda reintroduction...

the trouble with pandas...

there are no giant pandas in australia though i remember visiting some at melbourne when they toured australia in the 80's. they are pretty spectacular if you are lucky enough to see them active as i did when i visited chang mai zoo in thailand more recently. unfortunately or fortunately (depending how you look at it) china now only "rents" pandas for a whopping $1,000,000 a year for a duration of 10 years!!! however thailand get theres for just $100,000 a year. all infant pandas born remain the property of china and the zoos must justify keeping the pandas with some form of ongoing scientific research program about pandas. whilst the 10 million dollars each zoo must pay all goes into panda conservation back in china, currently a consortium of american zoos that rent pandas (atlanta, san diego, memphis and washington) are attempting to re-negotiate the deals, finding the cost is far too high to maintain. this is because whilst public interest is massive when the pandas first arrive, within a few years attendance declines and the zoos strugle to cover the costs with gate revenue alone.

two zoos in japan and mexico are the only zoos left in the world that outright own their own pandas and they are desperately trying to intiate a breeding program - though for many years now it has so far proven unsuccessful....
 
Great news for Panda lovers, The chinese think now after testing heaps of Panda poo for their DNA content that there could be as many as 3000 Pandas roaming the mountains in western China, this is wonderful news for everyone. Also some interesing news there are reports in some parks that Chocolate brown & white Pandas seen, and even a few reports of all White Giant Pandas. wow.
 
The news must be somewhat tempered. The research was based upon one reserve where the population was double the number first estimated by conventional survey methods. If it were then extrapolated to the entire reserve network containing panda groups it would mean 3000 individuals. That is yet to be tested. Nonetheless it is a hopeful sign and not improbable since typical panda habitat is fairly difficult to penetrate successfully.

Jelle
 
Jelle, have a look at the National geograpic website, there is some information about the rethink on Panda numbers now in China.
 
Yeah thats a real Cute photo alright, If they breed to many of them they can always send a few down here, hehe.
 
patrick,

Thnx, but I was aware of this. If you read it carefully you will find that the research has centered on the Wanglang panda reserve. Where 65 pandas were found through DNA dung analysis, more than twice the number previously counted. Now, they infer that if these findings were replicated over the entire panda range and reserves, their number would be more in the range of 3,000 individuals.

However, given the secretive nature of the panda, I can well imagine that their number is much greater than the actual sightings of pandas have suggested. Thus I look with great interest to the research being extended to other panda reserves and the results confirming earlier findings at Wanglang.

Hopeful signs, but yet to be .. fully corroborated.
 
patrick said:
the first ever captive-born panda has been released into the wild.....
Click to expand...

....the first ever captive-born panda released into the wild has died.

apparently he was released into an area with a significant pre-existing panda population and thus a significant lack of available territory. after a severe beating he was brought back into captivity, nursed to health and re-released in the same area only to discover more serious repercussions on his next encounter with a wild member of his own kind..
 
Currumbin better hurry up and get their pandas before they run out of them over in China.;)
 
Many years ago I attened a meeting at Chester Zoo where the then director Michael Brambell spoke about giant pandas. He had personal experience of keeping pandas when he worked at London Zoo.

When asked if Chester would ever exhibit pandas he said they wern't worth the trouble of keeping. They were not good 'show' animals and had a rather expensive diet. He went on to say an exhibit containing a brush and a shovel would prove to be more interesting, and the brush and shovel also had a better chance of breeding.

Chester were offered the loan of pandas about 5 years ago. The pair were sterile and the Chinese authorities wanted to charge $10,000,000 over ten years.They were politely told what to do with their offer.
 
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