Jia Jia, a giant panda believed to have been the oldest ever kept in captivity, has died at the age of 38, Hong Kong officials say.
Jia Jia’s age in human terms was more than 100 years.
Her death was announced by the Hong Kong theme park where she lived.
Jia Jia’s condition had worsened rapidly in recent weeks and she had lost her appetite, the park said.
Image source Flickr
The giant panda was put down by vets at Ocean Park, her home since 1999.
“She was a member of our family and she will be deeply missed… she has served as an important animal ambassador for her species,” the park said in a statement.
According to the park, in the last two weeks, Jia Jia’s daily food intake had dropped from over 10kg to less than 3kg per day, and she had lost weight.
“Over the past few days, she has been spending less time awake and showing no interest in food or fluids.
“Her condition became worse this morning. Jia Jia was not able to walk about without difficulties and spent the day laying down.”
Vets took the decision to put the giant panda down to prevent suffering, the park said.
The Hong Kong park held a high-profile celebration for Jia Jia’s 37th birthday at her enclosure in July 2015.
Born in 1978 in the wild in Sichuan, China, Jia Jia was given to Hong Kong in 1999 to mark the semi-autonomous city’s handover by Britain two years earlier.
Pandas normally live to around 20 years of age in the wild, and 25 in captivity.
A female giant panda at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC has given birth to twin cubs after artificial insemination.
Keepers at the zoo only discovered Mei Xiang was pregnant during an ultrasound scan last week. The zoo said both cubs appeared healthy.
Giant pandas are one of the most endangered species in the world and are notoriously hard to breed in captivity.
The National Zoo is one of only four zoos in the US to have pandas, which are on loan from China.
Mei Xiang, who has two other offspring, is one of the zoo’s star attractions and a Panda Cam on her enclosure crashed within seconds of the birth of the first cub being announced because of the volume of interest.
Female pandas are able to conceive for only two or three days a year, leading to a very low reproduction rate.
Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated with two donors – the zoo’s resident male Tian Tian and a panda named Hui Hui from Wolong, China.
It will not be known for a while which is the father, or what gender the cubs are.
It has previously taken months before Mei Xiang’s cubs have been introduced to the public.
AP news agency reports that her first cub, Tai Shan, was born in 2005 and returned to China in 2010; her second cub, Bao Bao, is two years old on August 23 and still lives at the zoo.
The panda population is threatened by habitat loss as land is increasingly inhabited by humans, with about 1,800 pandas left in the wild in China.
However, the number living in the wild in China has gone up over the last 10 years.
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