Yahoo News 14 Nov 09;
BEIJING (AFP) – China has started construction on a research centre to help captive pandas adapt to the wild with a view to releasing them into nature, state media reported.
The centre is being built in a mountainous area of the southwestern province of Sichuan, the official Xinhua news agency said, where an 8.0-magnitude earthquake left more than 87,000 people dead and missing in May 2008.
It is expected to be completed within three to five years, at a cost 60 million yuan (8.8 million dollars), the report said.
"Currently, there are about 300 captive giant pandas and it's time for us to think about putting them back in the wild," Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, was quoted as saying.
A large experimental area will accommodate 10 pandas that will be trained into adapting to the wild, according to the report.
Those animals that perform well will then be transferred to a "half-wild area" within five to 10 years, where they will live in caves and feed by themselves.
Finally, another five to 10 years will see some pandas let out into real nature.
There are about 1,590 pandas living in the wild around China, mostly in Sichuan, northern Shaanxi and northwestern Gansu provinces.
A total of 180 have been bred in captivity, according to earlier reports, but their notoriously low libidos have frustrated efforts to boost their numbers.
