Number of captive pandas hits 600

Years of efforts by Chinese researchers to increase the panda population has paid dividends as the number of captive pandas in the world has now reached 600.

The count means the world has been able to develop a self-sustaining and growing captive panda population, according to the three-day 2019 Annual Conference of the Chinese Committee of Giant Panda Breeding Techniques in Chengdu, Sichuan province, which ended on Wednesday.

Sixty pandas have been born worldwide this year, and 57 have survived, said Jia Jiansheng, a senior official with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

The conference is managed by the administration and hosted by the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens.

It would have been close to impossible to bring captive pandas from the brink of extinction, to say nothing of increasing their population, if Chinese researchers had not resolved the difficulties in panda breeding.

Explaining how difficult it was to get captive pandas to mate and keep the cubs alive, Zhang Hemin, executive director of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, said that researchers at first did not know pandas' habits.

Thinking that they preferred a solitary life, researchers kept each panda isolated in a tiny den.

As a result, the pandas became depressed and had difficulty becoming sexually active, he said.

Then researchers provided captive pandas with more opportunities to communicate socially with each other.

Male and female pandas were swapped into the dens of the opposite sex so that each would know the other's smell.

Another problem was mothers abandoning cubs, which used to happen because 50 percent of the newborns are typically twins and the mother would end up caring for only one.

A mother panda would first try to care for both babies, but several hours later, when she realized she could not, she would abandon one baby. If she tried to support both, both would die. So the mother deserted one baby even if it cried, Zhang said.

Researchers settled on a course that was part philanthropy and part trickery-taking away the deserted baby and feeding it milk.

Then they would switch it with the favored cub from time to time, so the mother unwittingly supported both, Zhang said.

The efforts have paid off as the number of captive pandas has increased, he said.