According to the official Weibo of the China Giant Panda Protection Research Center, at 2:00 AM on April 9th, ‘Lu Lu’ climbed onto the wooden frame with hanging toys in the outdoor playground of the Shenshiping Base Panda Nursery and entangled the rope of the hanging ball with itself, subsequently exhibiting struggling behavior. After several minutes, ‘Lu Lu’ stopped struggling and unfortunately died.

‘Lu Lu’ was a female panda born on August 10, 2019, and died at half a year old.

In a statement by @China Giant Panda Protection Research Center, it was stated that——

On April 9, 2020, the Panda Center’s Shenshiping Base giant panda ‘Lu Lu’ (born on August 10, 2019, female) died due to strangulation caused by the hanging ball rope wrapped around its neck. At 2:00 AM on April 9th, ‘Lu Lu’ climbed onto the wooden frame with hanging toys in the outdoor playground of the Shenshiping Base Panda Nursery and entangled the rope of the hanging ball with itself, subsequently exhibiting struggling behavior. After several minutes, ‘Lu Lu’ stopped struggling and unfortunately died. Due to the late-night incident and the difficulty in distinguishing ‘Lu Lu’’s entanglement posture from the resting posture on the wooden frame, the night patrol personnel failed to notice the abnormality.

Two opportunities to discover were ignored:

One was in the early hours, when the night patrol personnel’s inspection failed to find it. The report says: Due to the late-night incident and the difficulty in distinguishing ‘Lu Lu’’s entanglement posture from the resting posture on the wooden frame, the night patrol personnel failed to notice the abnormality.

The second was in the morning of the same day, when the management of the Shenshiping Base Panda Nursery’s kindergarten inspected the playground in the visiting corridor and saw that most of the panda cubs were resting. Because the deceased cub was facing away from the visiting area and looked like it was resting on the wooden frame from a distance, it was again missed.

In addition, some netizens pointed out: The time was around 2:00 AM. During that time, people watching the live broadcast of the China Giant Panda Protection Research Center’s live broadcast found ‘Lu Lu’ hanging there and motionless. When they called the China Giant Panda Protection Research Center, no one answered. Under the eyes of many people, a panda cub died hanging for a whole 7 hours.

It wasn’t until 9:00 AM that the keeper entered the panda nursery’s playground and, through contact and observation, discovered that ‘Lu Lu’’s neck and forelimbs were wrapped with the rope of the hanging toy. It was initially judged that it had been dead for some time, and samples were collected for examination.

It is reported that the Shenshiping Base Panda Nursery in Sichuan Province implements a panda concentrated kindergarten system, separating young pandas from their mothers before they reach half a year old for artificial rearing because at this time, the panda mother is still in the lactation period, which is a “pre-weaning” measure.

Currently, due to the incident, some netizens have proposed suggestions:

1. Stop the policy of forcibly separating mother and child at half a year old, allowing panda mothers to protect their children

2. Ensure that if the on-duty personnel cannot ensure 24-hour supervision, they should at least return the cubs to a more easily observable indoor area at night

3. The hanging toys should be suitable for age, comprehensively assess the safety risks, adult solitary pandas have a high acceptance of hanging toys, but the best hanging toys for young pandas are their mothers

4. Ensure that the hotline is open 24 hours a day

Panda cubs are difficult to survive, the accident has already happened, and relevant staff and institutions can only learn from the mistakes, quickly find the cause of the accident, and avoid recurrence. It is hoped that the Shenshiping Base Panda Nursery in Sichuan Province will achieve what is described in the Weibo: it has realized the deficiencies in giant panda safety management, will learn from the lessons, check and evaluate the safety of panda toys, and thoroughly eliminate potential safety hazards in the park; and strengthen night patrol supervision to avoid similar incidents.

Source: China News Network, Chinese Web, Shun Network, Comments by netizens

Editor: Xiao Y

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