Five years after his amputation of a hind leg, giant panda Dai Li is strong,
naughty and rather aggressive.
Despite difficulties to climb up a tree, the world's first ever giant panda
amputee enjoys running around with his peers at a giant panda protection base in
southwest China's Sichuan Province.
He may not remember how he got injured badly and was lifted out of danger by
his human friends at one year old.
In February 2001, a giant panda cub was seen limping out of the bamboo forest
in Baoxing County in the city of Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Obviously attacked by a wild beast, the cub was bleeding in the right ear,
backside and left hind leg.
Two villagers, Sun Shuqiang and Yang Yong, carried him to the county hospital
for emergency treatment, which lasted for 15 hours and finally lifted him out of
danger.
But a subsequent purulent infection that was threatening the panda cub's life
forced vets to amputate his left hind leg, after which he was sent to a nature
reserve of China Giant Pandas Research Center.
"We named him Dai Li. 'Li' means 'stand on his feet' and we hope he'll live
independently and survive on his own," said Cui Xuezhen, a forestry official
with Fengtongzhai nature reserve.
Cui said he has been visiting Dai Li three to four times a year to make sure
he is fine.
Fengtongzhai nature reserve was established in Baoxing county in 1979 to
provide a natural habitat for giant pandas. It covers more than 40,000 hectares
of land across five villages.
Baoxing county is where human beings first discovered the black-and-white
bears that were later dubbed a "living fossil". In 1869, French missionary
Armand David (1826-1900) found one of the cuddly bears in Baoxing county and
introduced the unknown species to the world.
The local people have since learned to protect giant pandas and take care of
the animals whenever they are in need.
When bamboos, giant panda's favorite food, bloomed in several habitats in
Sichuan Province in the early 1980s, many villagers in Baoxing county chipped in
to help starving giant pandas survive.
One family living in a village called "Happy Valley" even "adopted" starving
giant pandas and fed them with candied rice porridge.
Bamboo will flower, seed and die toward the end of its life. Giant pandas,
who are rather picky about food, will not eat the plant after it blooms and it
takes 10 years for a new supply to grow. The bamboo blooming in the early 1980s
caused the deaths of about 250 giant pandas.
Today, with ample food and nothing much to worry about, some pandas will take
an occasional walk into the villagers' homes and farms in their leisure time.
"The villagers are always careful not to scare the animal, but they will
observe carefully to see if it's sick or wounded," said Cui Xuezhen.
Last November, Gao Xiaowei, a woman farmer in Baoxing's Yanjing town, found
an old panda lying motionless on a mountain road and immediately reported to the
giant panda rescue station.
Timely treatment saved the life of the 15-year-old male panda, who was
diagnosed of dyspepsia and a slight gastric bleeding, said Cui, who oversaw the
rescue operation.
Giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species. Around 1,590 of
them are living in the wild in mountains of Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces and
another 180 are kept at worldwide zoos.
To better preserve the critically-endangered species, China is seeking to
include the giant panda habitat of Sichuan Province, an 9,510-sq-km area
including the world-renowned Wolong nature reserve, into UNESCO's World Heritage
List.
The habitat is home to at least 300 giant pandas and a variety of endangered
flora.
"It's great that our hometown is likely to become a world heritage site,"
said Li Guilin, a villager in Baoxing. "We'll do a better job to take care of
the giant pandas and safeguard their homes."
The ongoing Vilnius session of the World Heritage Committee will review 37
new applications from 30 countries.
To date, China has 31 world heritage sites, including the Forbidden City and
the Summer Palace.
