Huge Lab for Protection of Rare Animals Opens in Giant Panda
The opening ceremony of a for rare animals in the Giant Panda National Park was held in the Dujiangyan base of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda on Tuesday.
The Key Laboratory of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration on Conservation Biology of Rare Animals in the Giant Panda National Park is the first State-level laboratory in the field of panda conservation and research.
Planning for the Giant Panda National Park began on Jan 31, 2017, when the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and State Council issued a circular on the project.
Covering 27,134 square kilometers -- three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States -- the park is expected to help wild pandas living in isolation on six mountains across the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu to mingle and strengthen their gene pool.
More than 80 percent of the world's wild pandas live in Sichuan which accounts for about three-quarters of the area of the park, with the rest in Shaanxi and Gansu.
The Giant Panda National Park is one of the regions with the most complexand the most abundant wildlife resources on the globe, according to Zhang Hemin, deputy chief of the lab.
It is home to nearly 1,300 species of vertebrates. Among them, 145 species are under State-level protection, including the giant panda, snub-nosed monkey in Sichuan and snow leopard, said Zhang who is also executive chief of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.
A national key laboratory is needed to study them and offer suggestions on how to protect them, he said.
At the launch ceremony, Zhang's center signed a cooperation framework agreement with Lanzhou University, Beijing Normal University and Sichuan Agricultural University to jointly study reproductive biology, genetics, disease control and prevention and provide insights on rare animal protection.
The lab will also exchange research achievements with animal protection organizations at home and abroad.
(Source: China Daily)
