The Taipei Zoo on Wednesday and Thursday performed two artificial inseminations of its female giant panda, which is in its high fertility season, in the hopes of conceiving a new cub for its panda family.
Zookeepers on Feb. 9 started noticing signs of impending estrus and ovulation in the panda, known as Yuan Yuan (圓圓), including vulvar swelling, scent-marking behaviors, playing in the water and restlessness, the zoo said in a news release on Friday.
As the chance of ovulation would be highest when Yuan Yuan’s hormone levels peaked on Thursday, the zoo performed artificial inseminations on Wednesday and Thursday with semen collected from Tuan Tuan (團團), its male giant panda, the zoo said.
Photo provided by Taipei Zoo
During previous panda mating seasons, Chinese experts from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda visited the zoo, but they could not travel to Taiwan this year due to an outbreak of COVID-19 in China, it said.
A team set up a videoconference with the center and researcher Wang Chengdong (王承東) providing advice on breeding, it added.
On Wednesday afternoon, the team inseminated Yuan Yuan with part of the semen collected hours earlier from Tuan Tuan, the zoo said, adding that a sample had a sperm count of approximately 400 million, with 96 percent sperm motility.
On Thursday morning, the team inserted the remaining semen, which had a sperm count of about 450 million and sperm motility of 93 percent, it said.
In the afternoon, the zoo placed the pandas together, hoping to increase the odds of fertilization through natural mating, but with no results, as they either lost interest in mating or simply did not know how, it added.
Besides the tasks related to artificial insemination, the two pandas also received annual dental and abdominal check-ups, the zoo said.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan were gifted by China to Taiwan in 2008. Their only cub, Yuan Zai (圓仔), was born in 2013 at the zoo following artificial insemination.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS