Less than five months after the first overseas-born giant panda Hua Mei returned home from the United States, Japan-born panda Xiong Bang will set foot on his ancestral homeland.  

The two-year-old "boy," who was born at the Adventure World Park zoo in western Japan's Wakayama prefecture in December 2001, is expected to arrive at Beijing on June 21 by air and experts from the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province left for Japan on Wednesday to receive Xiong Bang, said Yu Jianqiu, vice director of the center.

"Xiong Bang has grown into an 88.6-kg boy from a 190-gram baby. He is in good shape and will be incorporated into the country's giant panda breeding plan after he returns home," said Yu.

Altogether 23 pandas are living in foreign zoos, according to the statistics released by the State Forestry Administration (SFA) last week.

In the period from 1957 to 1982, China gave 26 giant pandas as gifts to nine countries. China decided to no longer present giant pandas as gifts to other countries in 1985. Instead, the endangered animal can only go abroad by means of leasing and their cubs born in foreign countries belong to China.

Currently, Japan's Adventure World Park is home to six pandas, the largest panda population living outside China. The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center has also set up a foreign branch in the park, said Yu.

Xiong Bang was one of the twins born by the nine-year-old Mei Mei, who has born five babies since she was born in 1994. Mei Mei has been on loan to the Japanese zoo since 2000 as part of a giant panda reproduction program. Unfortunately, his twin was stillborn.

Before the birth of Xiong Bang, Mei Mei gave birth to a female, called Liang Bang, at the Adventure World Park on Sept. 6, 2000 after being artificially inseminated in China. His father Yong Ming was loaned to the park in 1994.

Xiong Bang was the first offspring born by the artificially-raised pandas in winter as a panda is usually in heat in spring and delivers babies in summer or fall, said Yu.

Pandas are among the world's most endangered animals. The statistics from the SFA released on last Thursday showed the number of panda in the wild in China has increased by more than 40 percent to 1,590 since the mid-1980s, while a total of 161 are in captive breeding programs worldwide.

However, while the panda population has risen, the animal's existence is threatened by loss of habitat, poaching and a low rate of reproduction. Also, groups of pandas live far from each other, making breeding difficult.

As an important part of its unremitting efforts to save this black and white bamboo-eating beast from danger, China has carried out a series of programs on panda research and breeding with foreign countries.

"The most successful and influential case in the world is the cooperation on artificially breeding pandas launched by the Adventure World Park and our center. And Xiong Bang is a good example," said Yu, who added that so far, the two sides have successfully artificially bred four pandas in Japan.

Xiong Bang is the second foreign-born panda to be returned home. In February of this year, the US-born panda Hua Mei returned to the famous Wolong Nature Preserve in Sichuan and she has become pregnant by natural means and is expected to give birth in September, said Yu.

(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2004)