China:Researchers hope better conditions will result in more cubs, writes Clifford Coonanin Chengdu.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan Province, southwestern China, is expecting a panda baby boom this summer and the next few weeks should reveal whether they beat last year's amazing tally of 59 cubs born in captivity.
Scientists at the base on the outskirts of the Sichuan capital are at the vanguard of efforts to keep this gentle black and white creature from becoming extinct. And it looks like it's paying off.
"We hope we'll have a baby boom this year. The ultrasounds are in June.
A big reason for the baby boom was animal management - the improvement in food quality and environment and nutrition as well as reproductive technology, said Wang Chengdong, the top vet at the base.
Of last year's baby panda boom of 59 cubs, 12 were from Chengdu Panda Base - nine born on the base, two in Japan and one in Zoo Atlanta.
There are signs the boom may be starting. Mei Xiang, the panda matriarch at China's National Zoo, may be pregnant for the second time, a zoo spokesman said yesterday.
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China. China's state forestry administration estimates there are 1,590 pandas in the wild - mainly in the mountains of Sichuan province - and 210 in captivity.
It's very difficult to tell if a panda is pregnant, given that a baby panda is just 1/900th of its mother's weight when it's born. Also gestation varies in length - one panda at the base was pregnant for 324 days.
A national emblem that brings good luck, the panda is a potent symbol in China, where they are called da xiong mao, "big bear cat".
"We have 59 pandas here but we need to increase the population to a self-sustaining number. Then we will consider releasing them into the wild. There are a couple of hundred in captivity but we think a total of 300 is a safe number before taking risks," said Wang.
Pandas are famously poor breeders - they spend most of the year on their own, except during a three-month mating season which begins in March.
Male pandas suffer from a chronic lack of sex drive - more than 60 per cent of male pandas in captivity show no sexual desire at all, and only a tenth of them will mate naturally.
Stories abound of keepers using videos of mating pairs in the hope that panda porn will help the bears get a bit frisky, although scientists say it doesn't have much of an effect and is a bit of an urban myth.
"Pandas don't watch TV. But they do like the sound, and vocalisation is important during breeding. The females want to do it but the males are less interested," said Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the base.
The female is fertile for just a few days each year, and the girl pandas like to play hard to get.
Just like everyone else in China, pandas follow a kind of one-child policy. Female pandas generally give birth to just one cub after a pregnancy lasting about 160 days and the cub weighs about as much as an apple when it is born. When two cubs are born, the mother will often abandon one or crush the cub in its sleep as she is not equipped to care for two.
"The population is stable now because of conservation and the numbers in captivity are increasing strongly in places like the panda base here," said Wang.
It's quite a task - the base has to have 4,000 kilos of bamboo a day shipped from the mountains. Bamboo growing is a major industry in the hills near Chengdu.
China's panda breeding and conservation community is still upset following the violent death in February of five-year-old Xiang Xiang, the first zoo-raised panda released into the wild. He was found dead in snow in a remote mountainous area of Sichuan 40 days after scientists picked up its trace for the last time via a wireless tracking device. It seems he had been attacked by jealous males during the mating season and pushed out of a tree to his death.
The death of Xiang Xiang just months after he was set free from Wolong, another panda centre around two hours outside Chengdu, is a major setback for efforts to conserve the endangered species by releasing captive-bred pandas back into the wild.
"Xiang Xiang died, which was sad, but our goal is to increase the population and scientists learned a lot from this. We learn more about how to choose the environment, what sex to reintroduce," said Mr Wang.
The plight of the panda is easing, partially because the animal is important to China's image and a key component in "panda diplomacy".
Beijing has a long history of using pandas to win diplomatic points, stretching back over centuries. In 1975 Chairman Mao Zedong sent Richard Nixon a pair.
Zoos abroad have to pledge to pay over €1.25 million a year to keep the pandas for 10 years.