Three Pandas Missing Near China Quake Zone

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News

May 19, 2008

Three captive giant pandas have disappeared from a famous reserve in quake-devastated central China, official media and the other sources reported Monday.

The Wolong National Nature Reserve is located 18 miles (29 kilometers) from the epicenter of the massive temblor that ripped through mountainous Sichuan Province on May 12. (See photos of the quake's devastation.)

Initial reports last week indicated that the 86 captive adult pandas at the reserve were unharmed. The reserve's breeding center is considered crucial to the endangered animals' survival as a species.

But closer examination of the facility revealed that three pandas were unaccounted for, Marc Brody, president of the U.S.-China Environmental Fund (USCEF), told National Geographic News.

Brody has received funding from the National Geographic Society for panda conservation research. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Brody received information from USCEF's Wolong staff, who were recently evacuated to the provincial capital of Chengdu.

Power and phones lines are still out in the remote reserve, and landslides have wiped out the area's only highway.

The 7.9-magnitude quake has so far killed 32,000 people, and the government expects the final death toll to surpass 50,000.

(Read: "Study Warned of China Quake Risk Nearly a Year Ago" [May 16, 2008].)

Further Confirmation

WWF China has also received confirmation that three pandas are missing from the Wolong reserve, according to a statement provided by the conservation group's spokesperson Kerry Zobor.

"WWF is concerned about the conditions and whereabouts of the three missing pandas," the statement said.

China's State Forestry Administration, which oversees Wolong and most of China's nature reserves, has also verified the animals' absence to media.

The agency has already begun efforts to locate the pandas, according to the WWF statement.

More than a dozen cubs were also rescued from the breeding center Tuesday by Wolong staff, just hours after heavy landslides piled on top of the main entrance. (Watch video.)

Employees were forced to climb a wooden ladder out of the reserve to a bridge, gripping the cubs in their arms, according to Brody.

The babies were then taken by car to the largest village in the area, Shawan, 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) from the breeding center.

(Read: "Pandas Sensed China Quake Coming?" [May 15, 2008].)

Tragic Losses

Xinhua also reported Monday that five staff members of the Wolong reserve died in the earthquake, the worst to hit China in three decades.

National Geographic News reported May 13 that 19 people in the Wolong reserve had died.

USCEF's Brody clarified on Monday that 5 of those 19 deaths were people associated with the Wolong reserve—but were not staff members as reported by Xinhua.

Four of the casualties were local residents employed as temporary workers for the reserve, including one person who was killed by a falling rock while working at the panda center. The Wolong Police Station's deputy director also died when he was struck by a spinning helicopter blade during an evacuation, Brody said.

Some of the heaviest devastation and human loss of life has occurred in the rugged territory near Wolong, at the edges of the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary, he added.

"The loss of any life in China is tragic, and the magnitude of casualties is overwhelming," he said.

"Thankfully, the caretakers of the pandas were spared."

The Associated Press contributed to this report