Researchers in southwestern China's Sichuan Province plan to use a police dog to help captive-bred giant pandas better survive in the wild.

The first panda returned to the wild died.

Experts will now release the police dog and some other herbivorous animals into the living area of four giant pandas to teach the pandas to fight, Chengdu Daily quoted the Wolong Nature Reserve for Giant Pandas in Sichuan as saying today.

The four giant pandas are candidates for the country's second project to release the precious animals into the wild after Xiang Xiang, a five-year-old male panda, was found dead in the snow on February 28 this year, almost 10 months after it was released to the wild, the report said.

Xiang Xiang, which had received almost two years of training, was said to have fallen from a high place after getting into a fight with wild pandas for food or territory.

Experts at Wolong said Xiang Xiang's male gender may have caused its death because males are usually regarded as a threat.

The release location may also have contributed, the report said.

Experts may release more than two female artificially-bred pandas into the wildness this time as females are seen as less of a threat by their wild peers, the report said.

Other options were to release one or two panda couples or a mother panda with her cub or a pregnant panda since the cub could adapt to its new environment at a younger age, the report added.

Locations for the second release may be designated around Emei Mountain areas in Sichuan where the pandas used to live, the report said.

The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China. An estimated 1,000 live in Sichuan and in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces in the northwest.

(Shanghai Daily December 21, 2007)