Edinburgh’s Tian Tian has a bit of colic.
Now that Yang Guang is doing better after his episode of colic, it looks like Tian Tian has the same. Here is an update by Edinburgh Zoo about Tian Tian’s condition:
Tian Tian our female giant panda has been under the weather this morning. One of our vets has been to visit her and suspects she has a bit of colic, similar to Yang Guang but much milder. She is being allowed time to relax privately away from public view today and probably tomorrow also. Yang Guang is expected to go back on public view on Monday.
We understand some visitors will be disappointed, however the welfare of our giant pandas has to be a priority. All visitors with panda tickets for today (29/1/12) have been fully refunded, welcomed into the Zoo for free and invited to rebook for a suitable future date.
Via Edinburgh Zoo, Giant Panda Zoo.
(click to see bigger picture)
Giant pandas Huan Huan and Yuan Zi will move to ZooParc de Beauval in France on January 15, 2012.
The panda pair will move to ZooParc de Beauval in Saint-Aignan, France on the FedEx Panda Express who will fly the female Huan Huan and the male Yuan Zi directly from the panda’s home town Chengdu to Paris.
Right now Huan Huan and Yuan Zi are staying at the Panda Quarantine Field at the Chengdu Panda Base. Here you can find some pictures of the giant pandas during their last days at their birth place.
More info here (in French). / Via Giant Panda Zoo.
China to release six giant pandas into wild.
The project is of the most ambitious attempts to replenish the endangered population with captive-bred animals.
China will introduce six giant pandas into a “semi-wild” environment on Wednesday in one of the most ambitious attempts yet to replenish the endangered population with captive-bred animals.
Celebrities – including basketball star Yao Ming – and political leaders will attend the ceremony in Dujianyan, Sichuan Province, to mark the relocation of the bears, which has been hailed as a milestone in a restoration project expected to take 50-years.
But many conservationists fear the programme will distract attention from the more important task of protecting the animal in the wild and could lead to tragedy.
The best known release of a panda resulted in the animal’s death after less than a year. Xiang Xiang – a five-year-old male bred at the Wolong panda centre, was killed in 2007 in a fight with wild rivals.
Chengdu’s researchers hope a phased approach will bring greater success. The six pioneer animals will be set loose for “training” in a controlled rehabilitation area of 20 hectares in Dujiangyan’s “Panda Valley” that is still under development.
Photographs of the facility in the Chinese media suggest it is more of a concrete zoo than an enclosed forest, but the panda researchers say there is ample space for wild training. The animals - Yingying, Zhizhi, Qiqi, twins brothers Xingrong and Xingya and Gongzai (said to be the inspiration for the King Fu Panda films) - have been selected from the 108 pandas at the Chengdu Panda Base, according to their health, behaviour and genetic diversity.
They are all adolescents - aged two-to-four years old - an age at which scientists hope they will be strong enough to fend for themselves, but still young enough to adapt. Those who respond best to the training for foraging and other skills will eventually be released into the nature reserve.
It is hoped that as they mature and breed, they will produce offspring fully accustomed to living in the wild. Once the 300m yuan (£28m) Dujiangyan facility is completed, it is expected to host more than 30 pandas at a time. Its goal is to release 100 animals into the wild over the next 50 years. The researchers involved in the project say patience will be necessary. “In the past, released pandas have either contracted illnesses or fallen to their deaths. We are trying to improve their ability to survive through various methods of training,” said Qi Dunwu, a professor at the Chengdu Panda Base. “A truly successful release will take many generations to prove because it will involve assimilation and reproduction.”
Many conservationists have mixed feelings about the value of the project due to the cost and uncertain outcome. There have been previous cases where endangered animals have been successfully reintroduced into wild habitats from which they went extinct, such as wolves in Yellowstone Park in the United States. But in that case, the animals were raised in the wild in other areas and only relocated. “We don’t yet know what it will take to ensure a successful reintroduction to the wild,” said Matt Durnin, who has been studying pandas for more than a decade. “It might add to the diversity of the population. But the downside is that it is a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of effort that might otherwise be spent on protecting the animals already in the wild.”
Source: Guardian.
ZooParc de Beauval’s pandas: Huan Huan and Yuan Zi.
ZooParc de Beauval in France is waiting for the arrival of their panda pair on loan from China. The pandas who will move to Saint-Aignan will be Huan Huan and Yuan Zi from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The panda pair is 3 years old and they lived together with many pandas of the same age in Chengdu.
Huan Huan and Yuan Zi will move to Beauval soon, under a cooperative agreement of research, breeding and conservation work on giant pandas carried out in direct contact with Chinese researchers from the Chengdu Panda Base.
Huan Huan (female) was born on August 10, 2008. Her mother is Qi Zhen and her father is Lin Lin. Huan Huan means ‘welcome’ or ‘great joy’.
Yuan Zi (male) was born on September 6, 2008. His mother is Yuan Yuan and his father is Ping Ping. Yuan Zi means ‘the son of the one that has a round head’. Yuan Zi’s mother, was called Yuan Yuan because her head is very round. The other part of his name, Zi, means ‘son’ in Chinese.
ZooParc de Beauval launched a special panda website in French and English. Go to pandas.zoobeauval.com for more information.
Via Giant Panda Zoo.
Giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang settling in 'very well' at Edinburgh zoo.
Yang Guang tucks into some bamboo at his new home at Edinburgh zoo. © Reuters.
Edinburgh zoo has said the giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang are settling in “very well”. After their marathon, nine-hour overnight flight from Chengdu, in China, to Edinburgh, they adopted the normal routine for jetsetters, sleeping for several hours at a time and grazing lightly while their body clocks readjusted.
Yang Guang, the male bear was described by his keepers as the more gregarious and outgoing of the pair. He spent his first night “scoffing bamboo like there’s no tomorrow”, according to the zoo’s head of animals, Darren McGarry.
“Tian Tian is a bit of a sweetie. She is much more relaxed. She is a smaller panda. She likes to spend a lot of time away from the keepers. Yang Guang is a big ray of sunshine. He’s a huge panda, really impressive. He spent a lot of time eating last night and seemed really happy, as he was scent-marking his enclosure to say: ‘This is my territory.’”
As the two giant pandas were settling in, Alex Salmond, the first minister, was able personally to thank Li Keqiang, the Chinese vice-premier, during his week-long trade mission to China.
“The timing of our meeting allowed me to thank him in person for the generous gift of the giant pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, who are already enormous celebrities in Scotland,” Salmond said.
As the pandas settled into their new, £250,000 home at the zoo, more intelligence about their lifestyles emerged.
It is expected that the pair, currently living in two separate but adjoining enclosures, will first be introduced to each other in February or March, when Tian Tian comes into season.
It also emerged that the bears’ faeces must be treated as clinical waste for the next six months as they are still, legally, in quarantine. They each produce a large carrier bagful a day. What happens to it then, remains a closely guarded secret.
Via Guardian.
Today, Sunday December 4, giant pandas Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang (Sunshine) have successfully arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland after being delivered by the ‘FedEx Panda Express’. Their 10 hour journey began in Chengdu, China and they travelled in special enclosures custom built by FedEx Express. The Pandas arrived at Edinburgh Airport today at 1:00pm and will be the first giant pandas to reside in the UK for more than 17 years.
© Mikael Buck, FedEx.
Tian Tian was first to be taken off the 777 aircraft, the “FedEx Panda Express”, in her specially-designed crate with perspex sides. The female panda and Yang Guang were then loaded onto a lorry for the 15-minute trip to the zoo. FedEx Express said the pair had enjoyed in-flight meals of bamboo, apples, carrots, a special panda cake and mineral water. They were accompanied by a vet and two animal handlers from Edinburgh Zoo and the Bifengxia Panda Base.
Photo 1: © Dm.photos.
Photo 2: © BBC.
Photo 3: © Butterstick Lover.
Click here to watch a video of the arrival.
Giant pandas arrive in Edinburgh from China.
Two giant pandas have arrived in Edinburgh, after a nine-hour journey from China.
The specially-chartered flight for Edinburgh Zoo’s new residents, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, touched down just after 13:00. The pair are the first giant pandas to live in the UK for 17 years.
The pandas arrived to wintry conditions in Edinburgh with temperatures of about 3C, having left temperatures of 10C at Chengdu Airport. BBC Scotland correspondent Colin Blane said: “I have been told the male panda, Yang Guang, is very fond of a roll around in the snow. “The conditions should be to his liking.”
He said the pandas had very different characters. “The female is more coy and shy, whereas the male is more outgoing,” he said. “Neither is aggressive, they’re both easy going - eating and sleeping a lot of the time.”
Tian Tian was first to be taken off the 777 aircraft, the “FedEx Panda Express”, in her specially-designed crate with perspex sides. The female panda and Yang Guang were then loaded onto a lorry for the 15-minute trip to the zoo. FedEx Express said the pair had enjoyed in-flight meals of bamboo, apples, carrots, a special panda cake and mineral water. They were accompanied by a vet and two animal handlers from Edinburgh Zoo and the Bifengxia Panda Base.
Messages and artwork by more than 1,000 Chinese children, wishing Tian Tian and Yang Guang good luck in their new home, were sent with the pair.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Dujiangyan Field Research Center will receive it’s first pandas at the end of 2011.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Dujiangyan Field Research Center for Giant Pandas, the world’s first giant panda reintroduction center, has completed the first stage of its construction. Administrators are now making plans to receive the first giant pandas at the Center at the end of December 2011.
Located in Majiagou, Yutang Town, with a total area of 2004 mu and a total investment of RMB 200 million, the center will be home to 30 to 40 giant pandas, 50 to 100 red pandas, and other wild animals. Journalists from the Tianfu Morning Paper learned from the Chengdu Forestry and Garden Bureau that this center is expected to receive 30 to 40 giant pandas after its completion in 2012.
The construction started in May 2010 and it is divided into three parts. There is the experimental area, semi-wild reintroduction area and reintroduction area. After completion, this center will be used to make preparations for the giant panda reintroduction.
Click here to see more images of plans for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Dujiangyan Field Research Center for Giant Pandas.
Via Giant Panda Zoo.
Tian Tian.
NEWS: Giant pandas due to arrive at Edinburgh Zoo on Sunday (December 4th).
Tian Tian and Yang Guang will not be unveiled to the public for at least two weeks after they land at Edinburgh airport. They’ll be on show from the 16th December.
Two giant pandas, the first to live in Britain for nearly 20 years, are expected to arrive in Edinburgh on Sunday after Chinese officials finally approved their new home at the city’s zoo.
The pair, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, are due to land at Edinburgh airport on Sunday afternoon on board a special FedEx flight from Sichuan province in China before being whisked to a redesigned enclosure in the zoo, complete with pool, cave and bulletproof glass.
Tian Tian and Yang Guang – their names mean sweetie and sunshine – are a breeding pair and Chinese officials and the zoo hope they will defy the species’s normal reluctance to mate by producing young, which would catapult the couple to worldwide celebrity.
FedEx, equally alert to the marketing opportunities, will be flying them in on a specially equipped Boeing 777 with customised “panda livery”, branded the Panda Express.
Counting China's wild pandas.
China kicked off its panda census last month. It’s the fourth one since the 1970s, when they instituted the practice to keep tabs on the worldwide panda bear count every 10 years.
The wild panda is only found in China, across parts of three provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi, covering 5,400 square miles. Or the size of Connecticut.
The bears like being high up, usually somewhere between 4,000 and 11,500 square feet above sea level in mountain forests with a damp climate.
The last census revealed only 1,596 wild pandas existed with 290 pandas in captivity around the world.
“About 70 to 80 percent [of all the pandas in the world] live in Sichuan,” said Huang Zhi of the Bifengxia Panda Breeding Center in Ya’an, Sichuan. “Sichuan also has the highest number of wild pandas.”
Telegraph: "Sweetie the Panda prepares to make British swoon".
Tian Tian, an 8-year-old female, will be the first giant panda to come to Britain for almost 20 years when she arrives at Edinburgh Zoo next month with her male companion, Yang Guang.
Submitted by Kiiimiko.
