Which panda is that? You’ll soon know

Centre to insert microchip in all its bears to tell them apart

Beijing: Giant panda fan Wan Yongqing, a photographer from Beijing, visits Sichuan province frequently to photograph the bears. But Wan feels it’s a shame he cannot tell one panda from another.

“All of them look the same with their black and white colours,” he said.

His sentiment is shared by many keepers in Sichuan.

“A keeper is familiar with the panda he or she attends. But it is very likely he or she cannot distinguish other pandas,” said Wang Chengdong, head of the animal hospital at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan’s Wenchuan county.

Keepers’ embarrassment can now be mitigated thanks to a microchip the centre is inserting under the skin of panda cubs.

The size of half a grain of rice, the microchip contains a unique identification code.

With a sensor that can scan the code, a staff member can instantly collect the panda’s basic information – its name, age and health records – Wang said.

Thanks to the code, a staff member can access more detailed records stored on a computer database to better analyse and manage the animal.

It takes only seconds to insert a microchip into a panda cub and the process does no harm.

“It’s like injecting medicine into a human with a syringe,” Wang said.

It is easy to inject a microchip into a cub that is, say, one-yearold because it can stay put, said Wang, adding that the centre will place microchips in all its pandas, both cubs or adults.

Without a microchip, researchers would not know who’s who when they recapture a bear for a physical check-up.

That’s because so many pandas have been set free, Wang said.