Pioneer pandas battle to survive new territory

An infrared monitoring camera captured a photo of Lu Xin in the wild in the Liziping Nature Reserve of Sichuan. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Program to relocate pandas slowly makes gains in protecting them from extinction.

Lu Xin was kidnapped after collapsing from hunger and sickness along a country road in Luding County, Sichuan Province. She never returned home.

Three years after being taken, the female panda is now a mother far from the mountains where she grew up, raising a healthy child along with a mate. Her ability to adapt to life in the new environment is being hailed as a breakthrough in China's efforts to rekindle the endangered population.

"We believe Lu Xin is quite happy with her new life in the new environment," Huang Yan, deputy chief engineer at the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda (CCRCGP).

It was his organization who arranged Lu Xin's new life in March 2009.

"This is China's first success in increasing the genetic diversity of small isolated panda communities by introducing outsiders," he said, emphasizing the importance of genetic diversity to the survival of a species.

Lu Xin was five when she was spotted in distress by a local villager, who immediately informed the CCRCGP. They delicately placed her into a cage and transported her to the center's Ya'an city base.

Doctors said Lu Xin suffered from severe dehydration caused by infection of the digestive tract. After her recovery, the wild panda was relocated to Liziping Nature Reserve on Xiaoxiangling Mountains, 100 km away from her home in the Qionglai Mountains.

Isolated groups

Huang said habitat loss and fragmentation have separated panda groups in nature. China has at least 30 isolated groups with a small population of less than 50 pandas.

A survey conducted by the State Forestry Administration suggested by the end of 2013, around 22 isolated groups had less than 30 pandas, including 18 groups with a panda population less than ten.

"Pandas in such small communities have limited mating options, thus have a high possibility of inbreeding. It may lead to birth defects and even death of newborns," says Huang.

As a panda in her reproductive prime, Lu Xin was assigned the tough mission to find a mate in Xiaoxiangling Mountains, which had only 30 wild pandas.

"Without any help, they may go extinct after a century," says Huang Feng, chief of the reserve' s management office.

Lu is one of the first to be relocated for such purposes, her success or failure in finding acceptance in the group and mothering a child is a tipping point for Huang's research.