New home built for Japan-born giant panda

Giant panda Ohama arrives in Beijing

The Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, has prepared a special home for the Japan-born giant panda Xiong Bang (Ohama), who arrived in Beijing on June 21.

The two-year-old giant panda is the son of Yong Ming and Mei Mei, a panda couple leased by China to the Adventure World Park Zoo in western Japan's Wakayama prefecture in 1994 and 2000 respectively.

Xiong Bang was the first male giant panda born in a foreign land to return to China this year, and he is also the first offspring born by the artificially-bred pandas in winter as a panda is usually in heat during spring and delivers babies in summer or fall, said Yu Jianqiu, deputy head with the center.

In February 2004, a female panda, Hua Mei born in the United States, returned to the prestigious Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan.

Researchers in the center have finished preparations for Xiong Bang's scheduled arrival on Tuesday after the panda finished quarantine procedures in Beijing.

The single-story house for Xiong Bang, which was refitted from the former veterinary clinic of the center, consists of four rooms and is shadowed with bamboo and trees. By the house is a 70-square-meter large sport ground for this energetic boy to play, said Zhang Zhihe, head of the center.

"Xiong Bang will live in two rooms, with an area of 30 meters each, and the rooms will be disinfected everyday," said Zhang.

Experts with the center have formulated a detailed schedule for Xiong Bang's daily routine and reproduction activities.

"We have prepared local food for Xiong Bang, including apples, fresh bamboo leaves and tender bamboo shoots, besides the milk and biscuits brought from Japan," said Wang Shuqun, the keeper who will take care of Xiong Bang in the future.

Xiong Bang was born at the Adventure World Park zoo in western Japan's Wakayama prefecture in December 2001 and the now 88.6-kg lively "boy" has grown from a baby cub weighing merely 190 grams.

Xiong Bang was one of the 23 pandas residing overseas, according to the statistics released by the State Forestry Administration (SFA) early this month.

During a 25-year period from 1957 to 1982, China presented a total of 24 giant pandas as gifts to nine nations. In 1985, however, it decided to offer no more giant pandas as gifts and instead, the endangered animal can only go abroad by means of leasing and their cubs born on any foreign soil belong to China.

A solemn hand-over ceremony was held in the Adventure World Park Zoo on Sunday and a delegation led by Ma Jinchuan, deputy director of the Chengdu City Gardening Bureau, was present at the ceremony.

The panda has won deep favor from Japanese people and Xiong Bang had a lot of fans. Together with the whale, the panda was the emblem of the zoo, said Teruaki Hayashi, head of the breeding department of the Japanese zoo.

Male pandas usually become sexually mature at five to six years old, so Xiong Bang will not immediately join China's giant panda breeding plan after his return home but he very likely will receive sex education first, said Yu.

"We are sure to be able to make Xiong Bang really feel at home here," Yu said.

Source: Xinhua