2-year-old panda to be released into nature reserve

A captive-bred giant panda named Zhang Xiang is about to start a new life in the wild. The two-year old cub left on Monday her home at a training center in Wolong, in south-west China's Sichuan, for a nature reserve 400 kilometres away.

A captive-bred giant panda named Zhang Xiang is about to start a new life in the wild. The two-year old cub left on Monday her home at a training center in Wolong, in south-west China's Sichuan, for a nature reserve 400 kilometres away.

She will be sent into the wild on Wednesday. Zhang Xiang has been trained to build a den and mark her territory. With the help of her mother and training staff, the cub developed skills such as recognizing potential enemies, hunting for food and climbing trees.

Her trainers have seen the cub develop more aggression recently, and they say this is an essential quality that will help her survive in the wild. She has been through a final body test that checked her teeth, weight and height and it turned out she is good enough to live in the wild.

Zhang Xiang will be the third captive-bred giant panda to be released into the wild in the past decade. Staff say the survival of Zhang Xiang is vital for them to continue the program, which aims to release more captive-bred giant pandas into the wild to protect their genetic diversity.