Freed Chinese Panda Dies In Wild

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"The first Chinese panda released into the wild after being bred in captivity has died, Chinese media has announced.

Xiang Xiang was released in April 2006 from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Centre and was said to be adjusting well to his new life.

But the five-year-old was found dead in February. Officials said his death was likely due to a fight with wild pandas";


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6707455.stm



Hm, such a shame to lose a panda when they are so rare, but certain things get to me about this incident;

"But he was briefly taken back to the centre in December for treatment after a fight with other pandas.

"We chose Xiang Xiang because we thought that a strong male panda would have a better chance of surviving in the harsh natural environment," Xinhua news agency quoted the reserve's deputy director Li Desheng as saying."



If they knew he was have issues finding a place in the panda society where they put him and that he was actually getting beaten up by the wild pandas, why didn't they move him to another area? It might have given him a better chance at finding a territory to call his own at the least.
But another problem with what happened was that it was obvious there wasn't the room in the area where they put him in for another panda which is why there was so much fighting, even if he had managed to secure himself a territory, it would have meant that another panda in the area would have had to be forced out (and might have even been killed like this panda) so its territory could be taken over by the new panda. Personally i don't think its fair to stick a big territorial male panda (which is relatively unfamiliar with living in the wild and with other wild pandas) in an area which is already populated with panda's, its the recipe for a disaster.

On the one hand, i think its good that they are doing projects like trying to re-introduce captive animals like pandas into the wild, but personally i think that with all the thousands of dollars they probably spent trying to get this panda back into the wild, they could have probably planted hundreds of acres of new bamboo forest with the money instead. Personally i think planting more bamboo forest is the key to saving wild panda's- unless we deal with the massive deforestation that is taking place in china right now, wild pandas and many other native chinese wild animals have little hope for survival in the future as their ever shrinking habitats are further destroyed by legal and illegal logging industries on a daily basis.

What do you think about this news article?
 
:rip:

poor thing

i can't speak with any authority about the natural environment of panda's and if it was a good idea to release him or not. i don't know all the facts well enough

however there's a first time for everything, and first attempts often go wrong, yes it's awful that a life was lost but that's nature, cliche but true, it's a cruel hard world out there!

"The lessons we have learnt from what happened to Xiang Xiang will help us adapt and improve the project."

as long as lessons are learnt and they can then get better results for future panda's then his death has not been in vain.
 
Yip, it does seem a bit daft, but you know how news reports can make things sound. Wouldn't it be better to introduce an entire colony (or a group used to living together) back into an enclosed, uninhabited (by other pandas) area to start with, let them get used to the 'wild', then slowly increase the area they can roam in, or similar? It's going to be a slow process, of course, but I would imaagine half the aim is to increase genetic diversity (as opposed simply to population).
 

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