Want to Learn It All About Panda Breeding? You Need To Know These To Start

Learn things about captive breeding of giant pandas, like how many pandas in captivity there are, what’s their status, why are kept in captivity, and what’s it like of panda breeding in panda bases?

The number of living giant pandas is quite low, just over 2000. Besides, the giant panda has a low birth rate in the wild. To protect these rare cute animals from being extinct, a lot of efforts have been put to keep them in captivity and help to reproduce. Successful panda breedings have been achieved over the past decades at panda bases in China.

When was the panda breeding started?

The attempt for panda breeding in captivity started in China in the year of 1955, but the first successful captive-bred panda “Mingming” was born in 1963, years later in Beijing.

How many pandas in captivity now?

There are about 400 pandas in captivity, which is believed to be a minimum number to sustain a population of giant pandas.

The process of captive-bred panda breeding.

The first thing is to mate male and female pandas. In the early years of panda breeding, captive pandas were found to either lose the interest of mating or do not know how. Although now the pandas know how to mate naturally through educational research by panda researchers, the timing could also be challenging. A female panda is fertile only two to three days a year so the timing is crucial, so both natural mating and non-invasive artificial insemination are used.

If a female panda is pregnant successfully, close observation is kept on her. It takes between 95-165 days in pregnancy.

After the gestation period, cubs are born in August to September. Newborn cubs are very tiny (1/900 of a mother panda), vulnerable and blind, requiring a very careful nursery by panda researchers. Researchers will wear panda costumes to ensure a familiar and comfortable home for the baby pandas.

How many pandas a female panda gives birth to?

A female panda reproduces every two years. One or two pandas are born each time, triplets very rare.

Where are pandas captive-bred?

Panda research and breeding programs are conducted at the four panda bases in China, including Wolong panda center, Dujiangyan panda base, Bifengxia panda center, and Chengdu panda base. The 400 captive giant pandas are living happily at these bases.