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SCMP Reporter

With only about 1,000 of its kind left in the wild, China's giant panda is one of the world's most endangered animals.

It is also possibly the best loved and most visible of all animals, with its image multiplied millions of times over in the form of cute cuddly toys and ornamental objects sold around the world and as an international symbol of wildlife preservation.

The Wolong Giant Panda Breeding and Research Centre, in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Chengdu, Sichuan province, is dedicated to saving the animals and breeding them to boost the population.

Panda numbers have dropped drastically over the centuries with the steady shrinkage of the animal's natural habitat.

Vast tracts of land that were once home to the pandas have been lost to human intervention, accompanied by serious threats to the bamboo ecology. The panda's diet essentially consists of a simple menu of bamboo shoots.

The Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Centre, established in the early 1980s, focuses on research to save the panda.

Its main concerns are to care for giant pandas brought in for captive breeding, look after injured pandas or those that have strayed from their group, and make sure that all is well when the animals

are released back into the wild.

The giant panda was 'discovered'  by westerners in 1869 by French  missionary Armand David.

The discovery sparked a debate among European biologists divided on whether to categorise the  animal as a raccoon or bear.

Because of the giant panda's rarity and the remoteness of its habitat, the animal became the subject of a contest to see who, from the western world, would be the first to shoot and kill one. Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of American President Teddy Roosevelt, took on the challenge and claimed this dubious honour in April 1928.

In 1936, New York socialite and bohemian Ruth Harkness made a long and arduous journey to China and Tibet to capture a panda, at the time the most mysterious and exotic of animals.

Ms Harkness created a sensation when she returned to America with a baby panda named Su Lin.

International curiosity about the animal soared, and zoos around the world showed interest in acquiring the animal.

At least 14 pandas were shipped from China and exhibited in western zoos, but the animals languished and failed to breed.

The panda disappeared into obscurity when China closed its doors to the outside world in 1949 after the Communists came into power, reappearing only in the late 1970s, when  the country opened up under Deng Xiaoping.

Although 24 pandas were given as 'goodwill' gifts to the United States, Russia and other countries between 1957 and 1983, serious scientific research on the panda and efforts to sustain its population  did not begin  until the late 1980s.

In May 1980, acclaimed US scientist George Schaller  made the first trip to what was then the Wuyipeng research base with fellow naturalists Hu Jinchu and Pan Wenshi.

The joint WWF and China expedition laid the groundwork for what is today considered to be one of the most successful breeding and research programmes in the world.

Professor Pan left the programme in 1985 to help initiate a similar programme in Shaanxi province to conserve the natural habitat of pandas and other wildlife there.

His pioneering efforts have been built upon by a succession of brilliant scientists from Sichuan, most notably the Wolong Breeding Programme's current director Zhang Zhihe  and his colleagues Zhang Anju and Li Guanghan.

All native Sichuanese, these scientists helped build the Wolong Breeding Programme into an internationally acclaimed  research base.

Knowledge gained from work done here has resulted in studies of the human impact on habitats, the process for  storing and using the sperm and eggs of wild animals, breeding techniques in captivity and genome research.

All of these affect research programmes around the world.

Liu Jianguo, a fellow at Michigan State University and co-author of several studies on sustainable development, recently teamed up with Jared Diamond,  author of Guns, Germs and Steel, on a study of China's environment.

The local economy of Wolong has been transformed by an emphasis  on traditional Chinese medicine and specialised crops, instead of poaching, rice farming and logging.  These are mentioned in Liu and Diamond's recent work.

The Chinese national and provincial governments' support of Sichuan's panda research programmes and the economic benefits of tourism, sustainable growth in the hinterland, the cultivation of 'green crops' and programmes (such as the 'rent-a-bear' programme that generates US$1 million per bear a year) have helped to reduce  the reckless exploitation of the environment. This is a  heartening step forward  for a country  that has serious environmental problems.

Meanwhile, Zhang and his colleagues are  conducting genetic research to ensure diversity in the panda population. They are also constructing lines of transportation between the 33  wildlife reserves dotted along the Min Mountains and the Minjiang River running through Sichuan, Qinghai and Shaanxi provinces.



Panda travels from obscurity into global spotlight