Struggling to recover: A panda cub plays at the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu on 7 May. China's quest to save the giant panda has been hit hard by last year's massive Sichuan earthquake.
Credit: AFP
"Food is important for relaxation," he added. "The panda breeds better when it is relaxed so in this way the earthquake has had an impact (on the panda's sex drive)."
In recent years, panda breeding program in China have led to a mini-baby boom – a record 25 pandas were born at nearly 50 breeding facilities in 2007 and preliminary figures suggested that continued last year.
Tourism income down
"Last year at our centre we produced 18 pandas. This was our historical best," said Hou Rong, head of research at the Chengdu centre – while adding that it meant over-crowded conditions and more animals to care for.
Meanwhile tourist income – an important revenue stream for the centre at Chengdu – fell almost to half in 2008 due to the quake, with visitor numbers dropping from 600,000 in 2007 to 300,000 last year, she said.
The global economic downturn could also hit the number of visitors, while donations may also drop.
Exacerbating such financial woes, the Chengdu centre last year took in 40 pandas from the Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Centre, China's biggest, which was largely destroyed by the quake, Wang said.
Much of the Wolong centre, which sits nestled in the Himalayan foothills near the epicentre of the quake, will have to be rebuilt, and its efforts to reintroduce captive pandas back into the wild have also suffered.
Fewer reintroductions
Although the 40 pandas housed at the Chengdu centre have been returned to Wolong, nearly 100 others from Wolong remain in other breeding centres around China.
The baby boom has also made efforts to return captive pandas to the wild – crucial to the species' survival – more pressing, Wang said.
The Chengdu centre is to build a separate facility to research methods on re-introducing the notoriously shy animals into the wild, including training them to forage for food, seek shelter and cope with wild pandas.
"We need to protect the panda and its habitat," Wang added. "But this is still going to take a long time."
