(CN) Five caretakers & one panda dead

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:

 

 

 

Five caretakers & one panda dead

 

WOLONG NATURE RESERVE-- The devastating May 12, 2008

Sichuan earthquake killed five Wolong Panda Reserve staff members and

one giant panda, Mau Mau, a mother of five cubs, whose remains

were found almost a month later. No information was available about

the status of the less closely monitored red pandas who share the

772-square-mile Wolong habitat.

Mau Mau and five other giant pandas were for weeks believed

to have escaped from the heavily damaged Wolong Giant Panda Breeding

Centre--but all the rest were soon found alive and well nearby.

Forty-seven people were killed near the Wolong Panda Reserve,

located 20 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. Initial

reports relayed by satellite telephone said that all 86 giant pandas

at the reserve were safe, but State Forestry Administration forestry

spokesperson Cao Qingyao soon updated to the state-run Xinhua news

agency that at least three were unaccounted for.

" The Wolong center is deep in the hills north of Chengdu

along a winding two-lane road that reports say was wiped out in

places by the quake. Earlier phone and e-mail contact attempts

failed, " reported Al Guo of the South China Morning Post.

The count of missing pandas increased as surviving staff

assessed the extent of the damage to the facilities. " Of the 35

enclosures at breeding center, 14 were destroyed and 18 were

severely damaged, " Agence France Presse summarized.

Xixi, the next-to-last giant panda who went missing, was

recaptured more than two weeks after the earthquake, when road

repair workers saw the bear playing near a river, the Beijing News

reported.

Shanghai Morning Post reporter Wu Fei was at the Wolong Giant

Panda Reserve when the earthquake hit. " Some pandas froze and looked

at the sky, not moving even when their handlers tried to get them

going. Other handlers picked up baby pandas by the scruff of their

necks, one in each hand, and ran, Wu said, " Cara Anna of

Associated Press summarized in translation. " The rescue was

complicated because some of the pandas were in what the Chinese call

their 'falling in love period,' being particularly excitable and

prone to attack, reserve researcher Heng Yi told Wu. "

" It was surreal. I was spinning around, trying to gain my

footing, and as I looked up, I saw a panda trying to do the same

thing, " visitor Robert Litwak, 55, told Agence France-Presse.

" The reserve's location in a damp, narrow valley several

hours' drive from the capital of Sichuan province made it an easy

target during the quake, which tossed down boulders the size of cars.

Most of the staffers, tourists and pandas were outside at the time, "

Anna continued.

" The pandas were agitated and pacing, " visitor Pamela

Capito, 60, told Yardley of The New York Times. " When the

earthquake hit, we realized they sensed it coming. "

Elaborated Times of London Pengzhou correspondent Jane

Mccartney, " British tourist Judy Ling Wong was having her photo

taken cuddling one of the babies. The earth erupted around her. As

she ran from the nursery, keepers grabbed the cub back. In their

playground and pens, adult pandas were pacing in panic as trees

tumbled down hillsides. When the earth settled, the visitors and

panda keepers realised that the bridge that was their only escape had

crumbled into the river that rushed along the bottom of the valley.

The keepers improvised a new crossing, lashing together bamboo

ladders.

" Once Ms. Wong and her fellow British tourists had been

helped across, the keepers " carried the babies one by one over the

bridge, " Wong recounted. " You can imagine how difficult and

dangerous it was to carry those squirming cubs with the river

underneath. As soon as they were across, they ran with each one to

shelter. "

The 14 cubs were placed in an undamaged wooden ticket booth,

Mccartney wrote. " The entire booth, cubs inside, was then moved up

the valley to a wider patch of flat ground where they would be in

less danger from aftershocks. Two armed guards were deployed outside

the ticket booth to protect these tiny national symbols. "

Wrote Guo of the South China Morning Post, " To release some

pandas and save smaller ones was a decision based purely on their

weight-- no one was strong enough to carry a panda weighing more than

100 kilograms (200 pounds). "

Thirty-one British tourists and 12 Americans were airlifted

from Wolong to Chengdu by helicopter.

" One-year-old Xinnier was the only panda injured amid the

chaos after the quake, " Guo wrote. " She stepped on a pile of glass

and cut her right foot. Qian Feng, from the Third Military Hospital

in Chongqing, who arrived at Wolong on May 16, was just in time to

treat the cub. "

Said Qian, " It's no different from taking care of a human

foot. You just make sure no infection occurs. " Caretakers fed

Xinnier to distract her while Qian worked. " Whenever the food was

finished, Xinnier would start watching her wounds, " Qian added.

" So they had to feed her non-stop to squeeze me some operating time. "

But panda food was soon scarce.

Wolong Nature Reserve deputy chief Wang Pengyan told Guardian

Beijing correspondent Tania Branigan that, " Many buildings have

collapsed or are unsafe, a new road to the center is unusable, and

vast areas of bamboo, " which provide food for the Wolong pandas,

" have been destroyed. "

The State Forestry Association flew five tons of bamboo to

Wolong among the first cargoes of emergency supplies.

Eight two-year-old pandas were already slated for exhibit in

Beijing for six months overlapping the 2008 Olympic Games, due to

start on August 8. The move became an evacuation. The pandas who

were sent to Beijing had resumed eating normally before they were

airlifted out, Wang said.

The bamboo shortage was relieved by moving as many pandas as

possible to other sites, including the Chengdu breeding center,

located across the city from the Animals Asia Foundation sanctuary

for Asiatic black bears rescued from bile farms. The Chengdu center

already housed 63 giant pandas.

Restoring the Wolong facilities, still occupied by 47 giant

pandas, might take " 10 or 20 years, " Wang estimated.

" It's better to move, I think, " Wolong Giant Panda Reserve

director Zhang Hemin told Anna of Associated Press. " I'm worrying

about secondary disasters, such as severe aftershocks. "

The Wolong reserve was proclaimed in 1963. The breeding

center was built in 1983 to house just 10 pandas, recalled Xinhua

News Agency editor Mu Xuequan. The nearby Wuyipeng Lesser Panda

Semi-Natural Center was originally part of the giant panda breeding

center, but was given to red pandas after the giant panda population

outgrew it.

Post-quake, Wolong may become chiefly a wild panda

monitoring center. " Long before the quake, researchers at Wolong

had been placing hidden cameras throughout the reserve to monitor

pandas, " reported New York Times China correspondent Jim Yardley.

" Now that footage will be used to help assess the impact of the

disaster. " But patrols of the reserve and a planned wild panda

census were indefinitely suspended while all hands coped with the

earthquake aftermath.

" Even before the earthquake, authorities were considering

nearby sites for a new panda centre, " Mu Xuequan said. " Li Desheng,

deputy director of the breeding centre, had said that the present

site faced the risk of flooding and landslides. "

Evacuating the pandas remaining at the Wolong breeding center

was delayed by damage to other panda facilities. China Wildlife

Conserv-ation Association secretary general Yang Baijin " said many

Sichuan panda reserves had been affected, " Branigan of the Guardian

summarized.

Eight giant pandas were safe at a preserve in Ya'an, for

example, " about an hour's drive west of Chengdu, " said Guo of the

South China Morning Post, but the facility had limited capacity to

take in more.

About 1,590 giant pandas remain in the wild, wrote Mu Xuequan,

75% of them in Sichuan, 17% in Shaanxi, and 7% in Gansu. Red

pandas are more numerous and more broadly distributed, but are also

recognized as a threatened species. --Merritt Clifton

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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Fax: 360-579-2575

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