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China's Pandas Struggle to Survive Earthquake

by Patrick J. Kiger

A half-hour before an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale rocked China on May 12, the giant pandas at the Wolong National Nature Reserve reportedly began behaving strangely, as if they knew something bad was about to occur. Since then, China’s pandas — one of the world’s most endangered species — have found themselves facing a new threat to their survival.

The Times (U.K.) reports that massive landslides and damage to the pandas’ already shrinking forest habitat may endanger as much as 90 percent of the panda population, which numbers between 1,600 and 3,000 in the wild. (Another 239 pandas are living in captivity in China.)

"Their living environment is completely destroyed," Yan Xun, an official at the State Forestry Administration, told the British newspaper.

Yan said he fears that wild pandas were crushed to death during the quake and aftershocks. In addition, he and other Chinese officials worry that the devastation caused by the quake may make it difficult for wild pandas to find shelter and the bamboo upon which they depend for sustenance.

"Caves and tree hollows where giant pandas live may be damaged, water in the habitat is polluted, and some of the bamboo is buried or smashed."

The Times reports that the massive quake killed at least one captive panda in Wolong, China’s largest breeding center, and another animal went missing, though she was eventually rescued. Fortunately, Wolong’s other 51 pandas are safe. That number includes 14 cubs, which were carried out of the preserve by keepers to protect them.

According to another dispatch from Washington Post correspondent Jill Drew, panda keepers at Wolong are using "touch therapy" to comfort animals that were traumatized by the disaster. Pandas stick their limbs through openings in their enclosure so that keepers can rub them as they talk gently to the animals.

The Associated Press reports that 9-year-old Mao Mao, a female who had given birth to five cubs, was laid to rest in a wooden crate at Wolong as a gathering of keepers mourned her death. He Changgui, Mao Mao’s personal keeper, wept as he placed two apples and a piece of bread by the grave.

In the United States, the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., has launched a campaign to raise money to help the Wolong Center and its pandas. For information on how to make a donation, follow this link.