China’s captive pandas near quake’s epicenter are safe

The human death toll continues to climb from Monday’s 7.9-quake in China, but Chinese officials say 144 giant pandas at facilities in the quake-stricken Sichuan province are safe.

That news, reported by China’s officials news agency Xinjua, citing State Forestry Administration sources, follows about 30 hours of uncertainty due to severed communication and transportation lines.

By the government’s account, 86 giant pandas raised at the China Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, about 20 miles from the quake’s epicenter,  were all safe and well Tuesday. Taken together, three panda research bases in Wolong, Chengdu and Xian housed 144 pandas, the government said, and all were unharmed.

Suzanne Braden, director of Pandas International, said Tuesday she had received reports of satellite phone calls from Wolong to China’s department of forestry about the reserve.

“We have heard, and we are hopeful, that staff members are safe and the pandas are safe,” she said, noting that she had heard that about 20 people had died in the Wolong area and that the road was blocked. Braden also said she heard reports that the panda cubs were moved to a safe place and that pandas at other sites — Chengdu and Xian — were fine. Braden pointed out that all the captive pandas used to be kept at Wolong, but officials feared that an outbreak of disease could wipe out the entire population.

“They decided that the population should be divided in case of any sort of catastrophe,” Braden said. “It was a wise decision.” Pandas International provides medical and veterinary equipment as well as medications for pandas. Braden was concerned about the fate of the pandas at Wolong. “Springtime is the birthing season, so lots of them at Wolong should be pregnant,” she said. “I have no idea how this will impact them or what we’ll do with them if the incubators have been damaged.”

China estimates it has about 1,600 pandas living in the wild in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, the greatest concentration of the animals in the world. The San Diego Zoo, which has a long-standing partnership with the Wolong panda center, reports that it had a staffer in Beijing at the time of the quake, who was unharmed.

Zoo Atlanta, which has a partnership with the Chengdu panda center, had five staffers in China when the quake hit Monday, including two in Chengdu. A spokeswoman said Tuesday that the Atlanta staffers weresafe and that panda facilities in China appeared to have suffered relatively minor damage.

Among the pandas at Wolong is Hua Mei, a 9-year-old female who is the first giant panda to be born in the U.S. and survive to adulthood. Born at the San Diego Zoo to parents borrowed from China, Hua Mei survived a closely monitored infancy and was transferred to Wolong in 2003. Since then, San Diego Zoo spokeswoman Christina Simmons said, “she’s had a couple of litters.” Though the San Diego Zoo had two staffers in China last week, one flew home shortly before the quake hit and the other was in Beijing and was unhurt, Simmons said.

–Mary Forgione and Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

[Photo: Panda Hua Mei, who was raised at the San Diego Zoo, at the Wolong Nature Reserve in 2004. By Chen Xie / Xinhua News Agency.]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 2:26 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under Asia, China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.