Giant panda conservation success of China and world’s zoos celebrated in Beijing exhibition
World’s fascination with giant pandas goes back to French missionary Père David’s first account of them in 1869, and multimedia show in Beijing charts the measures taken since to conserve the iconic animals and their habitat
An exhibition celebrating the origins and success of China’s giant panda conservation programme opened this week in Beijing.
Film screenings, artwork and photographs are featured in the first exhibition devoted to what its organisers call “panda culture”.
It traces the giant panda’s journey into Western consciousness, recalling how French priest and zoologist Armand David, known as Père David, was the first foreigner to bring them to the attention of the West. The French missionary described the body of a white bear with black legs and ears in his journal in 1869 while stationed at the Dengchi Valley Cathedral in Yaan, a city in Sichuan province.
Launching the exhibition, Yang Chao, director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation and Nature Reserve Management of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said the threat to giant panda populations had been reduced through conservation work.
“Their number rose from 1,114 in the 1980s to 1,864 [now],” he says. “After decades of efforts, China’s captive panda breeding programme has overcome the obstacles of [female] pandas being seldom in heat, pandas’ difficult breeding and insemination and the low survival rate of cubs.”