White Giant Panda Spotted in China’s Sichuan, Possibly First Albino Panda Ever Seen in the Wild
Rare White Panda Seen Interacting With Other Pandas At Nature Reserve In China’s Sichuan Province
While pandas aren’t native to Singapore, we’re quite familiar with them thanks to the Giant Panda family at River Wonders. However, most of us will not have seen rare animals like the albino panda, which has distinctive all-white fur.
This panda has recently been spotted again in China’s Sichuan province.
It is believed to be the only albino panda in existence.
Nature reserve in China releases footage of white panda
The Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China, recently shared new footage of the white panda, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The clips, released by China state broadcaster CCTV last Saturday (27 May), showed the furry animal strolling on the snowy terrain.
Clips also captured the creature clambering up a tree.
At one point, it appeared to look directly into the camera.
The panda is believed to be about five or six years old and doesn’t seem to be suffering from any health problems.
White panda interacts with other pandas
More interestingly, the new footage shows the white panda interacting with other pandas that have regular black-and-white fur.
This was at a location with an altitude of about 2,600m above sea level.
The other pandas didn’t seem to mind that it’s a little different from them.
In fact, from the close contact and the way it behaves around them, experts have reportedly speculated that a female panda in the group might be its mother.
First albino giant panda recorded in the wild
Mr Li Sheng, a researcher from Beijing University’s School of Life Sciences, told CCTV that this is the first albino giant panda recorded in the wild.
They would need to conduct more research to find out the probably of inheritance of the panda’s albino genes in the panda population, which is small, he said.
According to a 2021 biodiversity report, there are about 1,860 pandas in the wild in China.
First sighting in April 2019
This isn’t the first time that this albino panda has been caught on camera, though.
The nature reserve’s cameras first captured footage of it in April 2019.
After releasing the visuals in May of that year, the reserve set up a special team to monitor the panda, studying its routines so they could install cameras to shoot more footage.
Now, more than four years later, they’re happy to see that the animal is still in good shape.
