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Pandas{{/B}} With the Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF), China is making a concerted and dedicated effort to save the endangered pandas. The results, officials here in Chengdu indicate, are mixed but encouraging. A clear disappointment is the failure to breed pandas in captivity, necessary if their decreasing numbers are to be replaced. Another failure has been the incapability to find a natural, readily available food to replace the arrow bamboo. Despite these failures, success has come on two fronts. One achievement has been the physical rescue effort. Some pandas have been kept alive by salting (空投) the mountains with tons of cooked meat, which pandas will eat as a substitute for bamboo, and by the planting of new bamboo in isolated areas. Animals in some Sichuan areas have been rescued by local peasants and given emergency treatment by animal doctors. A second achievement is a massive fund-raising effort. Publicity about the pandas plight has resulted in a new $100,000 emergency allocation by the WWF and independent fund drives both in China and abroad. In spite of this support, there have been conflicts in the panda relief program. One important problem is the difficulty Peking is having balancing the recommendations of environmentalists with China's ambitious goal of agricultural and industrial modernization. Wolong is but one example of this difficulty. This 494,000-acre preserve was declared a protected area in 1975. Yet 1,800 people, mostly Tibetans, still live in the preserve, logging trucks still roll down the narrow mountain roads, and blasting work still goes on at the site of a new 160,000-kilowatt hydroelectric plant just six miles away. This all means that the pandas fight for survival will not be an easy one, even with the concerted effort of man. For in the end, even if they can survive the dangers of the wild, they must still contend with man himself. |