Panda cub debut to mark start of spring

Ten panda cubs born last year made their debut in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, on Wednesday to give New Year's blessings and mark the beginning of spring, or lichun, which is the first solar term on the Chinese lunar calendar.

At 11 am on Wednesday, caretakers took the 10 cubs to a playground in the Shenshuping base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, offering them their favorite food and letting them play freely on a small train and small castle made out of paper boards.

"They kept smelling and biting the new toys, and it was apparent that they liked the train and the castle," said Zhang Guiquan, a panda expert overseeing the base.

The average age of the 10 cubs is around six months, with the oldest－a pair of twin sisters－being more than 190 days old and the youngest being more than 120 days old.

"All the 10 cubs were reproduced through natural means," Zhang said.

It would have been close to impossible to increase the captive panda population if the center and the Chinese government had not resolved difficulties in panda breeding. The center was set up in 1980 under an agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund.

In 1992, the center was home to only 10 pandas.

Researchers worked to solve the problems from 1992 to 2006, and the center now boasts the world's largest captive panda population.

"It is now home to 330 captive pandas, while the worldwide captive panda population stands at 633," said Zhang Hemin, executive director of the center.

Explaining how difficult the task was, he said researchers did not know panda habits at first.

Thinking they preferred a solitary life, researchers kept each panda isolated in a tiny den. The pandas became depressed and had difficulty becoming ruttish.

In the course of studies initiated in 1992, researchers provided captive pandas with more opportunities to socialize and play with each other.

Male and female pandas swapped dens with the opposite sex so that they would know the smells of one another.

As for recreating a more natural environment for the pandas, researchers hid biscuits rich in vitamins in places that the pandas could not find easily, so as to get them moving to be more active.