China‘s oldest giant panda in captivity dies

BEIJING - China‘s oldest giant panda in captivity, Changchang, has died at the age of 35, state media reported. The 114 kg male suffered multiple organ failure and died Monday last week at a zoo hospital in coastal Shandong province, where he had been sent for treatment from a nature reserve in the western province of Gansu, the Beijing Youth Daily said. Plagued by poaching and habitat loss, there are only about 1,000 of the adored and endangered giant pandas left in the wild, in an area of mountain forest fragments in southwest China. China protects hundreds more of the bamboo-eating bears in zoos and animal parks, where breeding has proved difficult. The newspaper showed a photo of the weary panda hooked up to a feeding tube in his final days, his fur yellowing and unbrushed and his eyes watering. A panda‘s average life span is 10-20 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity, according to the World Wildlife Fund Web site. (Reuters)