Helping the Giant Panda Survive
A breeding center in China combines love and science in an effort to save the giant panda
from extinction.
Video
Even with all the worldwide attention on them, we still know very little about how big pandas
make little pandas. Our Patty King went to a place in China where they are trying to learn
more. It's a place where love and science work together to try and rescue the giant panda
from extinction.
Down a road called Panda Avenue, just after dawn, they show up in throngs. With the passion
of pilgrims, they are here to catch a glimpse of pandas at one of the world's biggest breeding
centers, 32 giant pandas more than in all the zoos outside China combined. The biggest
attractions are these little guys born just seven months ago. Zhou Hong has been taking care
of panda cubs for more than 20 years.
You hold them like you hold own baby, and they play with you. I have a very special feeling
about them.
It's hard to tell now but these pandas are actually just getting over a serious infection, an
infection that killed a fourth cub.
I still remember when this little cub died.
These cubs have no idea of all the hopes riding on their survival.
I have watched..
Zhang Zhihe is a geneticist and the director of the Chengdu Research Base. His dream is to
breed pandas and eventually release them into the wild.
You know, we Chinese call the pandas our national treasure, while I think as a Chinese, it's
our responsibility and obligation to save these animals.
Pandas have been around for eight million years. Zhang believes that this is the most critical
chapter in their story. And he's confident science will help write it. For the most part,the
reproductive life of the giant panda is a mystery. Zhang and his team are finding some clues.
They start it with only five captive born pandas. Nearly two decades later, they've
successfully bred 44 cubs. The window of opportunity is tiny. Females can conceive only once
a year when the female panda is ovulating and that is when the matchmaking begins.
Natural mating doesn't always end in pregnancy. So scientists quickly turn the artificial
insemination, or AI, often using frozen sperm. And they draw on the largest giant panda
sperm bank in the world, with samples from 17 animals, even when they died 12 years ago.
The samples are stored in liquid nitrogen.
If we don't have enough frozen semen, we can not reproduce the babies.""So really we are
standing in the room full of the next generation of giant pandas.""Yes,that's correct."
But all this science still can't guarantee the survival of a new born. Pandas often give birth to
twins. Usually the mother cares for one and abandons the other completely. But vets here
have mastered a way to save them both by using a bait and switching technique, taking one
cub a time, rearing it by hand and giving it back to its mother. The small victories come one
at a time, each one saving something at the heart of China. Zhou Hong thinks about that
every day.
I take care of these breed cubs more carefully than I do my own babies.