Singapore Bids Farewell to Its First Locally Born Giant Panda; Two-Year-Old Cub to Join Breeding Program in China

Le Le, the first panda born in Singapore, made his final public appearance at the River Wonders Wildlife Park before undergoing a month-long quarantine ahead of his departure bound for China.

Singapore's First Giant Panda

Le Le is a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) born in 2021 via artificial insemination after his parents failed to mate naturally. Jia Jia and Kai Kai arrived in Singapore in 2012 on loan from China. They are now aged 15 and 16, respectively.

According to the agreement, the offspring of these pandas were to be sent back to China upon reaching independence to join the panda breeding program in the country. Le Le is scheduled to travel to Chengdu City in southwestern China's Sichuan province on January 16. He will be transported through a custom-made crate on a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400F freighter plane.

Under the conservation program, Le Le will contribute to the effort to sustain the populations of giant pandas. Meanwhile, Kai Kai and Jia Jia will remain in Singapore under the care of Mandai Wildlife Reserve. The organization will continue to collaborate with its Chinese counterparts to ensure that both pandas will be well taken care of, focusing on their future breeding cycles.

Having crossed his second birthday on August 14, Le Le had shown increasing signs of independence, such as resting, eating, and playing independently. His mother, Jia Jia, had also started to show slight avoidance behaviors, like moving away when Le Le approaches. In the wild, these behavioral changes in mother pandas can lead to the eventual rejection of the cubs. These are all part of the life stage progression of giant pandas, which are solitary by nature.

To prepare the two pandas for their imminent separation, Le Le has been conditioned by the Animal Care team since February to enter a new private den away from his mother. The feedings have also been carried out in different dens since August.

Challenges in Breeding Pandas

Whether in captivity or the wind, panda reproduction is very difficult since only a few animals get in the mood to mate. Even when they do, most do not know how to reproduce. To complicate matters, there is also a small window for conception since female pandas can only conceive a cub for 24 to 72 hours once a year.

According to the environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an estimated 1,860 giant pandas are left in the wild, and about 600 are in captivity in zoos, wildlife parks, and panda centers worldwide. Given their dangerously low numbers and low birth rate in the wild, giant pandas undergo captive breeding programs to sustain their populations.

Pandas are one of the most recognizable emblems of China. The country has long deployed "panda diplomacy," where the Chinese government gives or lends giant pandas to other countries as a symbol of goodwill and friendship or to strengthen diplomatic ties. This practice dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) but became prominent in the 20th and 21st centuries.