You must select an available main section before the list of subsections will be populated. In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave permission for San Diego Zoo researchers to artificially inseminate Bai Yun with Shi Shi's sperm as a last resort.
Giant pandas are critically endangered in the wild.
It is estimated that less than 1,000 exist today. Paternity determination is greatly needed in order to analyze the number of founder genes present in the captive population and to assess the success of natural vs. artificial matings. Research fellow Yaping Zhang has devoted many hours to investigating the genetic differences within the giant panda population and constructing a genomic library for the species. Working with the Fuzhou Breeding Center and the Chengdu Breeding Center in China we are attempting to assess the hormonal differences between fertile and non-fertile pandas.