Bumper Panda crop last year

Posted 7 January 2007 by Nick Matzke

Interesting choice of headline. Prof. Steve Steve is pleased:

Baby pandas! Baby pandas! Baby pandas! POSTED: 10:07 a.m. EST, January 3, 2007 BEIJING, China (AP) -- A mini-baby boom last year has pushed up the number of pandas bred in captivity in China to 217, state media said Wednesday. Some 34 pandas were born by artificial insemination in 2006 and 30 survived -- both record numbers for the endangered species, Cao Qingyao, a spokesman for the State Forestry Administration, was quoted as saying by the Xinhua News Agency. The previous record was the 21 baby pandas born in China's zoos and breeding centers in 2005.

National Geographic a photo of them all lined up a few months back...

6 Comments

Dean Morrison · 7 January 2007

Sadly not such good news - these Pandas seem destined for a life in captivity - the record for returning these animals to the wild is not good:

Captive-bred panda missing after fight with wild rival

Protection of Panda habitat is far more important - although I understand there have been some positive steps in this direction - some new land has been designated National Park to offer the possibility of reuniting fragmented populations:

WWF on Panda Conservation

Bruce Thompson GQ · 7 January 2007

Prof. Steve Steve is pleased:

But will he be pleased when asked to provide a DNA sample for paternity testing? Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)

Nick (Matzke) · 8 January 2007

Yeah, the National Geographic article was in part about the commericalization etc. of Pandas -- the article text is online, it was "Pandas, Inc.."

Reed A. Cartwright · 8 January 2007

Prof. Steve Steve doesn't provide his DNA to anyone. He is afraid of being cloned without his permission. He is already concerned that there could be clones of him running around the world.

Henry J · 10 January 2007

Re "He is already concerned that there could be clones of him running around the world."

Well, that would be one way to get reinforcements for the science side of things... :)

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