Panda News from around the world
At 5:03 am local time Le Sheng after 7 hours of labour gave birth to this years largest panda cub weighing 213.8 grams (7.5 oz.)
The report says that Le Sheng was born on the 3rd August 1998, but I have that panda down as You You who already give birth this year. The only Le Sheng I can find was born on the 10th August 2000. Can any body shed any more light on this?
It has been reported that a giant panda at the Shaanxi Rare Wild Animals Rescue and Breeding Research Centre has given birth to twins a boy and a girl.
Lousheng was one of the first to be born by artificial insemination and the first to give birth the same way.
Lousheng was artificial inseminated with the sperm from two male pandas Sansan and Xiaoming.
I'm having problems finding these pandas in my stud book. Does any one have any more information?
Experts from the WWF have warned that unless something is done about the fragmentation of the pandas living areas the giant panda could become extinct from in-breeding.
The giant pandas habitat is being divided into smaller and smaller areas by the building of new roads, housing and other transportation routes. Which is stopping the panda from crossing into other area for food and finding a mate.
Without inter-breeding the pandas are at an increased risk of diseases and other birth related problems.
On August 15th 2009 the 15th panda cub of 2009 was born to Zi Zhu at Bifengxia.
Currently there are no further details.
This month marks the anniversary of French Catholic missionary Pere Jean Pierre Armand David introducing the western world to that most wonderful of creatures the Giant Panda.
To celebrate there is a 350km hike and a film festival.
The hike would depart from the West China Medical School of Sichuan University in Chengdu on 15th August and follow the footsteps of Armand David to Ya'an. Then ending at the panda centre at Bifengxia on the 25th August.
A week long festival with 40 films featuring pandas will be shown starting 19th August.
On May 27th Taipei Zoo's panda Lin Hui gave birth to the first panda cub of the year. On the 10th of August she was name Lin Bing which means forest of ice.
Her name was chosen from a short list of four names by 13.2 million of the 22 million post card votes that were sent in.
Once again thanks to Chet for finding the news. You really do need to be up early to beat her.
Once again Chet pointed out that there was another post on the Chinese blog about births at Bifengxia.
This time to Tien Tien so well done to everyone.
Our good friend Chet, has found a video documenting the birth of San Diego Zoo's Bai Yun giving birth to her cub.
Follow the reference to view the video.
At 4:58 local time on 5th August, a squawking panda infant was born to Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo.
For the previous 24 hours Bai Yun become more restless and taking shorter periods of rest with intermittent next building. At 2:45 she leaned back holding her feet. After a couple of hours and various positions, at 4:58 Bai Yun stood on all fours and had a series of contractions then a loud squawking was heard and Bai Yun turned to take care of her new born.
Congratulations to Bai Yun, and well done to all the staff at San Diego Zoo.
The San Diego Zoo's panda blog has an interesting story about Bai Yun and how recent ultrasound show that she is expecting twins. Though on a later ultrasound examination only one could be seen.
A study led by Weihua Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beigjin has found that in the area he studied more than 23% (354 sq km) of the pandas habitat has been destroyed, with much f the rest fragmented or damaged.
The research team used satellite imagery from September 2007 and July 2008, field observations and published research to measure the forest cover in the south Minshan region, close to the centre of the quake. From these measurements they were able to calculate how much of the forest has been destroyed.
On July 21st 2009 over 130 children camped out at Chengdu Giant Panda research centre.
They were there to see the first Panda Cub Twins of 2009 and to learn how and why we need to protect the Giant Panda, and how by doing so we also help ourselves.