Four female giant pandas begin 'field training', the future is now.

Meet the four female giant pandas who have begun 'Field Training' within the Wolong Reserve.

  "CARDS",  Was born in the autumn of 2000 Baoxing Fengtongzhai Nature Reserve, Sichuan, May 8, 2001 rescue in Baoxing field, in September 2003 transferred to China Giant Panda Research Center breeding. 2006。 In 2006, through 34 hours of the production process, it gave birth to the baby giant panda reproduction in the history of the heaviest (218 g), also set a record of the longest giant panda birth.

   "HASTILY",  Was born in 2002, grassland nature reserve in Wenchuan County, the earthquake has been seriously frightened, but the maternal instinct to keep a full stomach it was a small life, then first litter will be happy to go a pair of twins, each weighing 206.7 grams and 192.6 grams.  The time they are born just minutes apart, hit a giant panda breeding history of the production record of the shortest interval between twins.

  "BLACK BAMBOO"  Was born in the fall of 1999, by the end of 2005 weapons were found in the flat, early the next year was transferred to the Research Center in Ya'an Bifengxia base.  As in the wild injured and lumbar spine fractures, "black bamboo" can not walk to the site of the hind legs and wear a very serious, significant muscle atrophy, also suffering from malnutrition, anemia and liver dysfunction and other diseases, resulting in their foraging, activity is extremely difficult , just over 60 kg body weight.  Research Center staff adhere to its hind leg muscle massage and fed drugs, it is gradually restored ability to walk. 2007, it normal estrus and mating, but the cubs died abortion. 2009, it finally produced a class along.

  "BRITISH PING"   In October 2008 in the Canton River Conservation Area OF WENZHOU Chuan Tang family was rescued, the age of 8 years old, for the province after the earthquake, the first relief from the wild giant pandas.  Just when it was put back severely malnourished and had a black part of the Mao Doucheng gray eyes have cataracts, is now fully recovered, yet under the litter in captivity.

One of the goals to keeping giant pandas from becoming extinct is after a sustainable captive population is achieved through the breeding bases then a process would begin to release pandas back into the wild through a series of phases.  This phase places them into a large area of the Wolong Reserve where they will be closely monitored through surveillance cameras and minimal or preferably no human contact. 

The four pregnant females were selected after a thorough evaluation of all of their breeding female pandas.  Special criteria were set up for their selection .  Hopefully each female will bear a cub while living in the reserve and teach it to live on its own without the aid of humans. 

Thanks to Chet of Chet's Chatter who found this article that explains the process, it came off of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government website and this is where the descriptions for each panda was also.  Thank You to Chet and also to YingYing816 of YouTube for the photos of Cards, Hastily, Black Bamboo and British Ping. 

"July 20 morning 7:30,4 Field Training only be accepted from the Wolong China Giant Panda pregnant Giant Panda Research Center in Ya'an base in Auckland went to Wolong.  17:45 PM arrived in the Wolong China Giant Panda Research Center farm site.  This marks the Wolong Giant Pandas Field Training and the reintroduction of the second phase of the project officially entered the implementation phase of work.

This year, the female giant panda breeding program a total of 26, there were four finalists were "cards", "hasty", "black bamboo", and "Ying-Ping", they are from the mountain and Minshan Qionglai Mountains of the giant panda. The four giant pandas are the ambulance on the field, compared with other pandas, they have some experience of field survival, in which black bamboo, cards and carelessly  litter size in captive conditions, have good nursery experience and behavior.  The field of training programs, researchers in minimizing the impact of human factors on giant panda case, observation, monitoring and recording of a dam on litter size in nests of choice, farrowing, nursery and other behavior and growth and development of pups ." Sichuan Provincial People's Government

For another take on how this program will work, I am including a link from another news source that may explain it a little better only because the translation problems with the article from China. Pandas get lessons in survial skills

Another story was released just about the same time as this one and it ties in with release of the four females into the Wolong Reserve.

It has been discussed for years that giant pandas are facing extinction because of the tremendous reduction of suitable habitat that pandas need for their survival, such as the availability of food sources (bamboo) and the ability to mate.  But upon further observations of where pandas were living, they have discovered that many of them are living in small groups, isolated from others due obstructions such as developments, roadways, etc., throughout their habitat.

The WWF World Wildlife Fund has been actively involved with China to develop 'corridors' that would connect these segmented areas. They even put together a short video describing this as you can see below.

Here is an article, thanks to Lee of Facebook who alerted me to it, that discusses the genetic research that reveals why it is critical to connect these habitats.   You can read a abstract of the research here.

For pandas, there is a mountain high enough, there is a valley low enough
Zhu et al., BMC Genetics

"Fuwen Wei, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, worked with a team of researchers to study giant pandas in the Xiaoxiangling and Daxiangling mountains. He said, "These results suggest that gene flow will be enhanced if the connectivity between the currently fragmented bamboo forests is increased. This may be of importance to conservation efforts as gene flow is one of the most important factors for maintaining genetic diversity within a species and counteracting the negative effects of habitat fragmentation".

The giant panda is one of the most endangered mammals in the world. This is the first study to demonstrate that there is a relationship between landscape features and gene flow within their population. Wei and his colleagues recovered 192 fecal samples, which were found to come from 53 unique genotypes.

These 'genetic signatures' demonstrated signs of fragmentation within the panda population. The researchers said, "It is vital to reconnect the fragmented habitats and increase the connectivity of bamboo resources within a habitat to restore population viability of the giant panda in these regions".

More information: Landscape features influence gene flow as measured by cost-distance and genetic analyses: a case study for giant pandas in the Daxiangling and Xiaoxiangling mountains, Lifeng Zhu, Xiangjiang Zhan, Tao Meng, Shanning Zhang and Fuwen Wei, BMC Genetics (in press), http://www.biomedc … om/bmcgenet/"