China moves giant pandas from reserve in earthquake zone

Dozens of giant pandas in earthquake-hit southwest China are facing a food shortage, and some have been moved away from wildlife reserves to temporary shelters because of the threat of landslides and other hazards, a wildlife official said Tuesday.

Only seven giant pandas of the original 63 are left in the Wolong Nature Reserve deep in the lush mountains of Sichuan province, said Zhang Hemin, director of the reserve’s panda breeding program.

The animals’ usual diet of bamboo shoots is being supplemented with milk and biscuits because local bamboo forests were leveled, badly damaged or destroyed in the earthquake, Zhang said.

Most of the other pandas have been moved or are en route to other habitats "because of the threat of possible geological disasters, including landslides," he said.

"We're trying to get them to safety," Zhang said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.

The Wolong preserve, the most important giant panda breeding centre in the world, was near the epicentre of the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people and left millions more homeless The area's annual rainy season starts in June, and rivers routinely overflow their banks.

Six giant pandas from the centre were sent Tuesday to a reserve near Ya'an city, 120 kilometres away, it said. Another 13 were sent there last week.

An additional 19 have been sent to a breeding research centre in Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, and an unspecified number to the eastern province of Fujian and the southern province of Guangdong.

Quake hit during pandas' fertile period

The quake hit during what the Chinese delicately call the "falling in love period," a 24-to-72-hour window each spring when female pandas are fertile.

Despite the tremors and the aftermath, more than a dozen captive pandas were artificially inseminated and an unknown number of wild pandas may have got pregnant and should be eating more, state media said.

Wolong has shipped thousands of kilograms of bamboo each week to Ya'an to feed the pandas, which usually eat around 50 kilograms of the plant a day, Zhang said.

 "Now we feed them about 15 kilograms of bamboo a day," he said. "In addition, we give them milk and biscuits, which they also enjoy eating."

"There's no apparent change in their weight yet," Zhang said.

Officials at Wolong have said they want to find a permanent new home in the wild for the animals but cannot do so until geologists have completely assessed the damage.

New homes in wild needed

Along with Wolong Nature Reserve, the quake hit 48 other reserves created in the province to protect pandas and other endangered species.

It is unclear how many wild pandas died in the quake but one captive animal is known to have been killed, and another is still missing.

Before the quake, scientists believed that about 1,600 giant pandas lived in the wild on steep, bamboo-covered mountains, mostly in Sichuan and the neighbouring province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.