As one in four captive-bred pandas are descended from same ancestor, close breeding poses serious challenges
Though giant pandas are no longer technically endangered following China's extensive conservation efforts, the bears still face an uncertain future, namely whether or not they can return to the wild rather than stay captive.
Pandas were downgraded from "Endangered" to "Vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) after a nationwide census in 2016 discovered 1,864 pandas living in the wild in China, a 16.8 percent increase since the 2003 survey.
While more and more people, through live-streaming, are getting to know pandas as cute, captive-bred animals, wild pandas and rangers of their habitat are often neglected. Experts say the ultimate goal is to release captive-bred pandas into the wild, but how to carry out that goal remains a big question.
After the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding launched ipanda.com in 2013, a website that enables panda fans worldwide to watch round-the-clock live-streaming broadcasts of the bears, pandas became the latest online sensation. On Weibo, followers of ipanda.com, which uploads daily videos of panda cubs chomping on bamboo, playing in trees and tumbling in the grass, have surpassed 4.9 million.
A video uploaded by ipanda.com last February showing a panda named Qiyi chasing his keeper for a hug was viewed over 50 million times on Weibo and 120 million times on Facebook. Even the keepers themselves are becoming internet-famous and are regularly asked to pose for pictures by panda fans.
These pandas are the second- and third- generation that grew up in captivity since the Wolong National Nature Reserve started to breed pandas in the 1980s. Nationwide, the practice started even earlier, in the 1950s.
Hu Zhichu, an 89-year-old expert on giant pandas, said captive breeding was not intended to sustain the panda population, but only to meet the growing international curiosity and demand for the animal.
Since Soong May-ling, wife of Chiang Kai-shek, gifted a pair of giant pandas to the US on behalf of the government of the Republic of China (1912-49) in 1941, pandas have become China's most famous diplomatic gift.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, 24 pandas were given to nine foreign countries as goodwill gestures. The most famous of these gifts were probably Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, two giant pandas given to the US as gifts after President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972.
In 1982, the government began to loan pandas to zoos around the world. By 1988, at least 30 American zoos and other international organizations were applying for panda loans. All these pandas were captured in the wild. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, for example, had been captured in June and December of 1971.
