Last Monday's 8.0-magnitude earthquake, whose epicenter is about 30 kilometers from Wolong, injured two pandas, left one panda missing, leaving all the panda houses severely damaged. Of the 32 panda houses in Wolong, 14 were destroyed and the rest were severely damaged.

"Some of the pandas behaved nervously and had less sleep and food after the quake, " said Wang Pengyan, deputy chief of the Wolong Nature Reserve Administrative Bureau.

"It's necessary to have the keepers in Wolong, who began to take care of the pandas after they were born, be with them now and help them meet the challenges of living in a strange place," said Wang who arrived in the Chengdu base yesterday afternoon to prepare for the bears’ departure for Beijing.

To ensure the animals' health and safety, Wolong will send up its panda keepers, vets and technicians to help take care of them during their stay in their new home in Beijing, he said.

The eight bears selected by netizens from 16 candidates born in 2006 in Wolong will be on display in the Beijing Zoo until November, and are expected to attract more than six million tourists from home and abroad during the six-month show.

Many of their peers in the zoo are getting old. The new members, at a golden age for entertainment, will ensure people have a good time, said Wang Pengyan.

Sixty-seven pandas in the Chengdu base are safe despite some walls and its surveillance system were damaged, Wang Chengdong said.

Wang's base, which tried to help Wolong immediately after the quake took place, could not contact it until last Thursday because the latter's telecommunications were cut off.

The next day, the base sent 1,500 kg of bamboo, 1,000 kg of bamboo shoots, 1,000 kg of apples, 200 kg of milk powder and 100 kg of specially made buns for pandas to Wolong by road. The base also provided Wolong with 200 liters of liquid nitrogen right before the liquid nitrogen in its sperm bank was dry.

The supply of bamboo has been in short supply because many people stopped collecting it from mountains after the quake.

"The Chengdu base has asked Wolong to use bamboo from its bamboo base in Ya'an, " Wang said.