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New home opens to pandas Eight giant pandas in the Wolong breeding reserve in Sichuan Province were Sunday relocated to a new habitat built to prevent the spread of disease and inbreeding. After a carefully-planned six-hour journey, the animals arrived at the Bifengxia Giant Panda World in Ya’an at 2 p.m., 200km from the Wolong reserve.
CCTV said this was the beginning of the biggest relocation of giant pandas in the history of raising the rare animals. The giant pandas were relocated to the spacious Bifengxia habitat to reduce the risk of an outbreak of disease as the Wolong reserve is too crowded with a large number of giant pandas. The new habitat will also help to limit the damage to the panda population by preventing inbreeding. The first phase of the Bifengxia reserve will be opened to visitors by Oct. 1, the start of the National Day holiday week. The new habitat has 16 shelters, all equipped with air conditioning and running water. Giant panda experts will move another eight to the Bifengxia base after they are sure the first group has adapted to the new environment. The largest habitat of its kind, with a planned area of 400 hectares, the Bifengxia reserve will be built in three phases. The entire habitat will be fully completed in 2005, when some 40 giant pandas will live there. The first eight giant pandas will receive training to prepare them for returning to the wild.
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