Plethora Of Pandas Doing Well
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CHINA (CBSDFW.COM) - All the ten pairs of twin pandas bred in 2016 at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China have survived, and the secret to the 100 percent survival rate is technology, according to the base.
In the early 1990s, the survival rate of panda twins was only 50 percent according to the base.
"We know that in the wild a mother panda often chooses to raise only one of her twin cubs, usually the stronger one, while leaving the other to die of cold or starvation,"said Wu Kongju, an expert at the base. "For pandas raised in captivity we have mastered the technology to make a mother panda breastfeed her twin cubs in turn."
Without artificial intervention, even the single pandas have a hard time surviving.
"Our foremost breakthrough is to allow the panda cubs to get colostrum, because almost all the panda cubs are premature with hypo immunity at birth, so they need to acquire rich antibody from maternal milk," said Liu Li, a veterinarian at the base.
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