The first panda to be released into bamboo forests after being bred in captivity has died. Officials from China said they believe the Panda (male) was chased by other male Pandas, a natural male attitude. They believe he fell off a tree while being chased. The body of Xiang Xiang was found February 19 on snow-covered ground in the forests of Sichuan province in China's southwest.
The Panda, Xiang Xiang, was released in the wild after a three year training in survival techniques and defense tactics. Xiang Xiang learned how to build a den, forage for food and mark his territory, experts at Wolong have said. He also developed defensive skills such as howling and biting. Shall we see this death as a failure from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center?
The Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Centre was one of the earliest research bases established in the early 1980s by the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Until 1989, the Ministry of Forestry of PRC and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) formulated the long-term Giant Panda Management Plan.
Today, the Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Centre has been turned into the Giant Panda Breeding Centre focusing on research works on breeding and bamboo ecology. The centre has semi-nature enclosures for Panda about to be released to the wild: Although food has to be provided, the giant pandas sleep there, eat there and recover their natural survival skills there until they can be released back to the wild.
"We chose Xiang Xiang because we thought that a strong male panda would have a better chance of surviving in the harsh natural environment," Li Desheng, deputy director of the Wolong center, was quoted as saying. "But the other male pandas clearly saw Xiang Xiang as a threat. Next time we will choose a female panda."
Well is it really a good idea? A bunch of angry, sex-thirsty pandas that stumble upon a neat urban foxy panda girl, it could turn pretty messy too. Maybe the problem was not a male thing: Xiang Xiang means auguring favorable circumstances and good luck. Now obviously something went wrong. The Wolong Center should consider not attributing gay names to their pandas if they want to survive in the wild, and those are words of oriental wisdom.
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