Austrian-born panda arrives a 'happy tiger'

A star attraction since his birth in the Vienna Zoo, a 2-year-old giant panda Fuhu returned to China on Thursday.

He returned to the Bifengxia Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at about 5:30 pm. After a brief welcoming ceremony, he started a month-long quarantine in his new den in the base. He is expected to meet visitors in one month, said Tang Chunxiang, assistant to the director of the center.

Fuhu, which literally means "Happy Tiger" in Chinese, bid farewell to his birthplace in Vienna on Tuesday. He traveled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by road, before getting on a plane at 20:45 pm on Wednesday and landing at Shuangliu International Airport in Chengdu, Sichuan province, at 1:30 pm on Thursday.

Born in August 2010, Fuhu is the second cub of the Chinese panda pair Yangyang and Longhui, who were transferred from China to the Vienna Zoo in 2003, and are on loan to Austria from China for 10 years with the understanding that their offspring would be returned to their homeland at the age of 2.

Like his 5-year-old brother, Fulong (meaning "Happy Dragon" in Chinese), who returned to the center three years ago, Fuhu was conceived and born naturally, although artificial insemination is a common practice when breeding captive pandas.

To facilitate Fuhu's safe return, the Vienna Zoo started training him last month in a small cage that the keeper shook from time to time to simulate in-flight turbulence.

Fuhu, who weighed 100 grams at birth, now weighs over 50 kg, about half the normal weight of an adult panda. His primary caretaker, Renate Haider, accompanied the panda to the Bifengxia Base together with Dagmar Schratter, director of the Vienna Zoo.

Although the taste of bamboo leaves and carrot is slightly different in China, Schratter, who accompanied Fulong back to China three years ago, is sure that Fuhu can adapt to the new environment.

A wild panda usually leaves its mother and starts a new life at around 2 years old, she said.

Her zoo scored a huge success in 2007 when it became the first European zoo to see a panda born from natural conception.

Since it was set up three decades ago, the center has loaned 20 pandas to nine zoos in the United States, Japan, Austria, Thailand, Australia, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

"Sixteen cubs were born overseas and 10 are alive. Seven of the overseas born pandas have returned to the center, which has the world's largest overseas returned panda population," said Zhang Hemin, chief of the center, which belongs to the Wolong Nature Reserve in Wenchuan county, Sichuan.

The carrier that took Fuhu home was a plane of the Royal Dutch Airlines, which named a brand-new Boeing 777-300ER plane "Wolong Nature Reserve" on June 18, 2012.

The airlines said it would name all its Boeing 777 planes after major nature reserves across the world.