US-born Panda Tai Shan makes public debut in China

The only giant panda born at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. to survive beyond infancy, Tai Shan is out of quarantine in China and is now on public display.

Tai Shan, the 4 1/2-year-old panda born and raised at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., made his first public appearance at the Ya’an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base in Sichuan province,  China, Tuesday, March 9, 2010. after being kept in quarantine for a month after his trip from Washington.

Tai Shan eats bamboo in his new digs at the Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base in Sichuan province. Staff said Tai Shan was adjusting well to his new surroundings in his "motherland."

Tai Shan’s new home is  a 320-square-foot (30-square-meter) room attached to a large garden enclosure at the Ya’an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base, where staff said Tai Shan was adjusting well to his new surrounding in his “motherland.”

Tai Shan and Mei Lan are loaded aboard a Federal Express 777 freighter leaving Washington Dulles International Airport on February 4, 2010.

Tai Shan and another American-born giant panda, 3-year-old Mei Lan from Zoo Atlanta, were flown to China from the U.S. on a  “FedEx Panda Express.” in February. Their parents were lent to U.S. zoos for conservation purposes. Under a deal between China and the U.S., any lent pandas or cubs produced must eventually return to China where they become part of a breeding program.

Breeders were wasting no time planning how Tai Shan could help propagate his endangered species.

“We will give him enough freedom to reproduce. As soon as he becomes mature enough … we will provide him different sex partners for him to choose. Of course now his is still too young for it,” said an executive at the center.

Giant pandas in captivity typically reach breeding age at around 5 or 6 years.

About 1,600 giant pandas live in the wild, and another 290 are in captive-breeding programs worldwide, mainly in China.

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