CHINA:Most of the pandas at earthquake-devastated Wolong research centre in Sichuan have been evacuated to other parts of China, just days after the docile, breeding-averse bears were taken off bamboo shoots and put on a strange diet of fruit.
The fate of the pandas, the city's official symbol, is closely watched in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, which was devastated by the May 12th quake which left 90,000 dead or missing and millions homeless. Exhausted by the litany of pain and hardship, people have been following the furry beasts' fate, hopeful for a bit of good news.
Sadly, they may have to wait for that good news. Wolong lies just 30 kilometres from the epicentre of the quake at Wenchuan and it was devastated by the tremor. One panda was killed there and another remains missing, and no one knows how many wild pandas died.
Landslides and other quake-triggered hazards in the mountainous areas remain a big threat, meaning the pandas have to move.
It was an arduous 13-hour trek by road for six of the Wolong pandas to their temporary shelter in Ya'an Bifengxia base in Sichuan, the first part of the evacuation plan. Ya'an is also preparing to receive another 27 adults and cubs.
Evacuation team leader Huang Zhi said the transferred pandas ranged in age from eight to 13 and were all female. They included Guo Guo, a pregnant 12-year-old panda who is due to give birth in about three weeks.
The pandas were kept in two-tier cages with beds and lots of bamboo to keep them comfortable.
Mr Huang said they were worried when passing over Jiajin Mountain, which is 4,000 metres above sea level, as pandas normally have difficulty above 3,500 metres. "The pandas will be exhausted after hundreds of kilometres of travel. It will take them a few days to recover," he said.
Another 19 pandas would be moved to a breeding and research centre in Chengdu, a panda research centre in China's east, and a zoo in the south. Seven cubs born last year during a panda baby boom will be kept in safe areas inside the reserve at Wolong.
There are reckoned to be 1,600 pandas living in the wild, all of them in China, and about 1,400 were in the part of the southwestern province of Sichuan hit by the quake. The numbers have been rising in recent years follwoing conservation efforts.
Damage to the bamboo forest in earthquake sites such as Dujiangyan and Mianyang has led to a sharp reduction in the amount of shoots on offer for the panda, who now must make do with fruit and seeds.