China's Pampered Pandas

Pit

y poor Xiang Xiang. Pampered from birth, his every need anticipated by a loyal band of caregivers at Sichuan's Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Center, the baffled bear received the shock of his young life soon after his fourth birthday. Last April 28, he was driven into the middle of thick bamboo forest and abandoned, making him the first giant panda bred in captivity to be released by Chinese scientists into the wild.

Although he had received some survival training, Xiang Xiang soon found he had been dropped off in a very rough neighborhood. In late December, forest wardens spotted him via one of a string of video monitors positioned throughout the park. He had been bitten by a wild panda in a fight for territory, says Zhang Hemin, director of the Research and Conservation Center for the Giant Panda at Wolong. "Our researchers found him and brought him back. The doctor treated him briefly, then sent him back to the wild." Unfortunately for Xiang Xiang, the tough-love approach only compounded his problems. In a subsequent encounter with a woods-wise cousin, Xiang Xiang tried to escape by climbing a tree. The hapless bear fell out and, from what rangers could gather over their monitors, probably broke a leg. Since then, Xiang Xiang hasn't been seen. Still, Zhang insists his charge had to be banished. "We did not want to keep Xiang Xiang because that would have shown our experiment had failed," Zhang says.

Chinese scientists have spent millions of dollars and gone to extraordinary (some might say absurd) lengths to perfect a captive breeding program for the notoriously shy bears. After several decades of frustration, 2006 was a banner year. Using methods ranging from electric rectal probes and Viagra (the drug didn't work) to movies of pandas mating, China produced 34 panda cubs last year. That compares with only nine births in 2000. The program was initially spurred by a desire to save the species from extinction. But in 1975 China set aside 10 nature reserves for the bears, covering almost 1 million hectares in Sichuan province. That move, bolstered by years of worldwide publicity for the panda's plight, has reduced the threat. China's population of about 1,600 wild pandas has been stable for several years, says Fan Zhiyong of the WWF.

The fact that China's pandas are no longer in jeopardy makes it harder to justify the more questionable aspects of its breeding programs. The 200,000-hectare Wolong Nature Reserve, for example, faces pressure from human development and is barely large enough to support its wild bear population, let alone additional pen-reared animals like Xiang Xiang. Then there's the problem that, with the exception of ungulates like deer, animals raised in captivity are rarely able to adjust to the rigors of the wild. Efforts to reintroduce orangutans into Indonesia's fast-disappearing forests have met with scant success, for example. Even Keiko the killer whale (the inspiration for the Free Willy movies) ended up in a Norwegian harbor, cadging food from fishermen and tourists. Says Jim Harkness, former head of the WWF in China: "Reintroduction is a heroic measure, costly and high risk. It should be a last resort that is attempted only when the wild population is no longer viable."

So why go to such lengths to breed pandas if the threat of extinction has eased? Harkness says national pride in the program's success and bureaucratic self-preservation are factors. There also may be an economic motive. Zoos are eager to donate money to China in exchange for the right to display pandas. In the U.S., four zoos, including the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., are each paying $10 million over a decade for their Wolong-bred bears. But Zhang denies the breeding program is aimed at raising money. He notes that the government restricts the number of overseas groups the Wolong center can supply with animals, adding that any donations are used to expand protected areas and for research. And he insists that reintroducing pandas into the wild will help sustain populations over the long run. "It is not responsible for anyone to declare that the experiment is pointless," Zhang says. Xiang Xiang's coddled siblings had better prepare to follow him into the dangerous depths of the forest.