Human Interest

World’s oldest captive panda dies at 38

Shanghai, China, Dec 22 (efe-epa).- The world’s oldest panda living in captivity in China has died at the age of 38, official People’s Daily reported on Tuesday.

Xinxing died at a zoo in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality on Dec.8.

She began to show symptoms of drowsiness and loss of appetite in October. Her condition worsened quickly in the next few days, according to the zoo authorities.

She developed shortness of breath, cough, abdominal distension, and had trouble defecating, they said.

Various experts tried to save her life, but Xinxing finally died due to old advanced age and multi-organ failure, which caused respiratory and digestive infections.

Her age was the equivalent of about 110 to 130 in human years.

The panda was born in the wild in 1982 in Baoxing County, Central Sichuan Province, where the species was discovered in 1869.

She was transferred to the Chongqing Zoo at the age of one.

She celebrated the 38th birthday on Aug.16 at Chongqing Zoo as she appeared in good physical condition, maintaining a weight of 90 to 100 kg.

She used to eat seven meals a day, including 30 kg of bamboo shoots, 1 kg of bamboo leaves, and some fruit.

The female panda had a total of 153 descendants.

Her offspring are in China and other countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, and Japan.

According to the latest World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) census, conducted in 2014, there are less than 1,900 pandas in the world.

Their natural habitat is currently limited to six mountainous areas spread over the Chinese Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

Efforts for its protection made it possible in 2016 to elevate its status from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. EFE

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