Preserving panda shifts to quality over quantity

One of the biggest jobs of "panda mama" Hou Rong in the past two decades was to increase the number of pandas as much as possible.

But success soon will bring changes. After the total number of captive pandas reaches 500, China will put greater emphasis on increasing the quality of the stock, said Hou, director of the Research Center of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Hou, an NPC deputy, spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing two sessions.

"Now it is not difficult to get pandas to reproduce. At our center, almost all baby pandas survive, as long as they are healthy at birth," said Hou, nicknamed "panda mama" after making several breakthroughs in China's panda breeding technology.