Giant pandas play after snow at Shenshuping base of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong National Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dec. 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing)

Wild giant pandas have prospered in a national park in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and their population has increased to 149 from 104 in 2015, based on DNA analysis of the pandas that have been spotted.

The giant panda national park in Wolong, Sichuan, is the first conservation agency in China to apply DNA technology in tracing wild pandas, Li Sheng, a researcher from the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, told China Central Television.

The park collected and analyzed samples of panda feces in the wild using DNA identifying technology in order to better monitor pandas in the reserve area.

Panda feces contains cells that have fallen off the inner wall of a panda's intestine. Researchers extracted DNA from the cells and analyzed it, allowing them to identify the gender and health of the pandas.

"The reserve can then create a profile for every panda without disturbing them," Li said.

Facial recognition, wireless ultra-shortwave cameras and infrared cameras are used to monitor the population and living conditions of the giant pandas in the wild, according to the report.

According to the fourth national giant panda census conducted by China's forestry bureau, the population of wild pandas in China was 1,864 in 2015, up by 268 since the third census in 2013. The number of pandas bred in captivity reached 394.

Global Times