Albino panda spotted at nature reserve
Print Edition
A RARE all-white panda has been caught on camera at a nature reserve in southwest China, showing albinism exists among wild pandas in the region, state media reported.
The spotless, red-eyed animal was photographed while trekking through the forest in mid-April in southwestern Sichuan Province, said Xinhua news agency on Saturday.
The panda is an albino between 1 and 2 years old, said Li Sheng, a researcher specializing in bears at Peking University.
The Wolong National Nature Reserve, where the animal was spotted, said it had no further details about the albino panda.
More than 80 percent of the world’s wild pandas live in Sichuan, with the rest in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.
There were about 548 giant pandas in captivity globally as of November, reported Xinhua.
The number living in the wild has dwindled to fewer than 2,000, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
In 2018, China announced plans to create a bastion for giant pandas three times the size of Yellowstone National Park to link up existing wild populations and encourage breeding of the notoriously slow-reproducing animal.
At least 10 billion yuan (US$1.45 billion) had been budgeted for the Giant Panda National Park in mountainous southwest.
Pandas are listed as a vulnerable species, which means that while their survival is still threatened, conservation efforts have helped reduce their danger of extinction.
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