China forest ranger chances upon panda suffering flu and runny nose in jungle valley — rescue comes just in time
Veterinarians who carried out medical check found the Panda actually had a lung infection
Conservationists have rescued a giant panda with a bad case of flu in Baoxing county, a mainland newspaper reports.
A forest worker on patrol found the 15-year-old panda last week, curled up in a jungle valley and appearing ill and frail, according to West China Metropolis Daily.
“He had a runny nose and lost part of his nose and upper lip, probably in fights,” the inspector, Zheng Congjun, was quoted as saying.
The patrol officer arranged for co-workers to help move the panda to a nearby conservation station. Veterinarians carried out a medical check and determined it had lung infection brought on by the flu.
The panda, which is already old, was sent to a more advanced facility – the Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda in Dujiangyan , under the administration of the provincial capital Chengdu .
It was unclear whether the animal would be released back into the wild. But if the animal is released, staff will be able to track it.
Usually, staff at the research centre will implant an ID tracking chip under the skin and fit the animal with a GPS collar.
Pandas generally live to about 25 years.
China has 1,864 pandas in the wild, according to official figures released earlier this year, an increase of 17 per cent from a decade earlier. In the 1970s, they numbered about 1,000.
