3 to 5 months’ supply of bamboo for pandas in China

Officials say there is only between three to five months’ supply of bamboo for the pandas to eat. Staff at Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Centre were trying to find fresh supplies of bamboo.

Chinese state television said that bamboo, the staple diet of pandas, is in high demand following last month’s powerful earthquake in Sichuan province.

Officials say there is only between three to five months’ supply of bamboo for the pandas to eat. CCTV reported on Saturday that staff at Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Centre were trying to find fresh supplies of bamboo.

Landslides have cut off the mountainous supplies of bamboo for the pandas, according to the Centre’s director. “There are many landslides which are covering the bamboo area, so basically there’s no bamboo there. The amount of bamboo which can be purchased or cut has decreased sharply,” Zhang Zhihe says.

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Courtship is a noisy affair for Giant Pandas

They are known to be shy and peaceful, but when it comes to sex, Giant Pandas turn hysterically noisy.

This complete metamorphosis of nature in the animals has been filmed by a BBC Natural History team in the bamboo forest that lines China’s Qinling mountains, when they captured a giant panda‘s courtship and mating sequence.

In the first of its kind sequence on TV, a male panda is shown to be fighting off the competition from other males, while he tries to woo a female who has taken refuge up a tree.

The magic moments, shot for BBC Two ‘s Wild China series, shows the rampaging males indulging in their boisterous calls on the ground, while the female finds save haven up on the tree.

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Panda Finds Way Home to Reserve After China Quake

A captive adult giant panda that had disappeared during the May 12 earthquake has returned home, but two of the rare animals are still unaccounted for, China’s state media agency reported today.

Officials are optimistic about the survival of the two missing pandas, which live at the Wolong National Nature Reserve in central China.

The reserve is located 18 miles (29 kilometers) from the epicenter of the massive temblor that ripped through mountainous Sichuan Province. (See photos of the quake’s devastation.)

The panda’s homing instinct is not unusual, Marc Brody, president of the U.S.-China Environmental Fund (USCEF), told National Geographic News.

“There’s a history of captive pandas returning to the breeding center after escaping for one reason or another,” he said.

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PHOTOS: Panda Bear Cub’s Growth

An amazing series of photographs documenting the first three months of a cute panda bear’s growth.

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When little things that rule world are lost

There are 6.5 billion people in the world today, three times as many as 50 years ago. There are undoubtedly three billion fewer insects, the forgotten creatures that maintain the fabric of life.

These include bees, butterflies, moths and all flying mites and invertebrates and sea creatures that inhabit earth and slime. Not many people, excepting scientists who watch and count, pay much attention.

Almost everybody is aware of the travails of the major star species such as polar bears, pandas and tigers. We are reminded on a daily basis of their endangerment. There was a scare about bees last year but honey is still in the supermarkets so the bee colony collapse is more or less old news.

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Artistic animals provide zoos an untapped source of revenue

You might not be able to afford a Picasso, a Van Gogh or a Monet — but for $30 you can own your very own painting by Brittany the elephant.

She’s a resident at the Milwaukee County Zoo, where trainers encourage her to paint as a way to keep her mentally stimulated. She holds a paintbrush in her truck and slaps it at the canvas.

Zoo trainers across the country have been teaching animals to paint for years. Artists include monkeys, kangaroos, pandas and even a rhinoceros.

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Animal rights in China: A small voice calling

Human rights, or the lack of them, have long been a focus of China’s critics at home and abroad. But a new rights movement—complete with idealistic local and foreign campaigners—is stirring: animal rights.

Animals are treated dreadfully in Chinese farms, laboratories, zoos and elsewhere. There are grim factories where thousands of live bears in tiny cages are tapped for medicinal bile. At safari parks, live sheep and poultry are fed to lions as spectators cheer. At farms and in slaughterhouses, animals are killed with little concern for their suffering.

According to Zhou Ping, of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, few Chinese accept that animals have any rights at all. She thinks it is time they did, and in 2006 put forward China’s first national animal-welfare law. Her proposal got nowhere, and there is no sign of progress since. “There is so far”, she says, “only a small voice calling for change…”

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