China's
Wolong National Nature Reserve is in Sichuan province which is home to 80
percent of the world's wild pandas.
Pandas are currently listed as a vulnerable species, with fewer than 2,000 living in the wild according to the World Wildlife Fund [Handout Wolong National Nature Reserve/AFP] |
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 bear
was photographed while trekking through the forest in mid-April in southwest
Sichuan province, said official news agency Xinhua on Saturday.
The panda
is an albino between one to two years old, said Li Sheng, a researcher
specialising in bears at Peking University, who was quoted in Xinhua's report.
The Wolong
National Nature Reserve - where the animal was spotted - told AFP 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 province.
Giant panda
park
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.
Famed for
its "panda diplomacy", in which China dispatches the rare animals to
other countries as a symbol of close relations, Beijing has invested in
different programmes to protect its furry ambassadors in recent years.
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 ($1.45bn) had been budgeted for the Giant Panda National Park in
mountainous southwestern China the state-run China Daily reported.
Pandas are
currently 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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