The image of the giant panda is one of the most iconic symbols of species conservation around the world but the animal may now also represent the success of efforts to save endangered animals from extinction such as through artificial breeding programs.
On Tuesday, Guangzhou's Chimelong Safari Park in China announced that a giant panda called Juxiao has given birth to triplets in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province, last month. The birth apparently shows that the country's artificial breeding programs are working, as the birth is the result of an artificial insemination earlier this year.
Breeding pandas poses challenge as the animals are known to be choosy with their mates and are not interested in sex. They also only have several days of opportunity to conceive per year and these factors have contributed to the small population of the animals. As of 2004, only 1,600 pandas are estimated to live in the wild.
The safari park said that the three cubs are the only known panda triplets and their one-time birth was hailed as sort of a miracle given that Pandas are known to have low reproductive rate and triplets have very low chances of survival. Zhang Hemin, from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, said that panda triplets only have 1 percent survival rate at birth. The miracle birth, however, is attributed to the advances in breeding technology.
"Now we have created a miracle," Zhang said. "The three pandas have a great chance of staying alive, as they are now very healthy."
The 12 year-old Juxiao was artificially impregnated in March using a sperm from a 17-year old panda called LinLin, and was under round the clock care during the final weeks of her pregnancy.
"In September last year, we made them neighbors so they could see each other and get familiarized with things such as smell," Chimelong Safari Park's general manager Dong Guixin said. "Juxiao also had to do more exercise to strengthen herself."
In the early hours of July 29, Juxiao labored for four hours and gave birth to the triplets, which were initially put in the incubator as Juxiao was too exhausted and needed to regain her strength. The trio, which weighed between 83 to 124 grams at birth and were smaller than the human palm, now weighing between 230 grams to 333 grams, is being nursed by their mother and looked after by a team of feeders.
Dong said that the birth of the trio exceeded their expectation and the triplets managed to survive for 15 days which make them the longest surviving panda triplets so far.
