Hunger forces pandas out

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 12

Hunger forces pandas out

NZPA Peking A starving giant panda “staggered” into a peasant’s house and was rescued from the bamboo famine blighting its habitat in the Chinese mountains. The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, said the male panda, five or six years old, entered Qin Yiling’s house in Pingwu County, Sichuan province, on March 25. The peasant had him ■ taken to one of the rescue centres set up by the Government to save the endangered species. In another part of Sichuan province, the agency said, villagers killed a goat to feed a hungry panda that approached. Later it was led to a dense bamboo grove deep in the mounPeajants who took part in

the rescues were given rewards of 200 to 500 yuan (SNZI43 to $358), the equivalent of a year’s pay for many. Twelve pandas have been rescued from the bamboo shortage affecting three Eices of south-central and threatening the lives of almost half the 1000 giant pandas in China. Large patches of bamboo, the staple diet of pandas, withered and died last year in a flowering cycle that occurs twice a century. The known panda death toll is 12, comprising seven found dead in the wild and five that died during emergency treatment. The Government has allocated 2.6 million yuan (SNZI.B million) for the rescue, and the Chinese public had given an extra 200,000 yuan by the end of March.