Photo: People’s Daily

Two giant pandas spotted engaging in courtship by rangers in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province in March have been identified as Tao Tao and Hua Yan, which is the first live footage of two released giant pandas engaging in courtship behavior captured in China, Sichuan Guancha reported on Tuesday.

In March, rangers from the conservation station of Giant Panda National Park in Shimian county in Ya’an, Sichuan, came across two giant pandas during their patrol and captured footage of them courting each other.

In order not to interfere with the pandas’ courtship, the rangers chose to leave first and came back to the site the next day to collect feces samples.

After analyzing the experimental data of giant panda fecal samples, the laboratory staff members of the station confirmed recently that the male giant panda in the video was Tao Tao, released to the wild in 2012, and the female giant panda Hua Yan, released in 2016.

This confirms that they have successfully adapted to the wild and are capable of mating, breeding, and courting, staff explained. It marks a significant new development and discovery for the panda release program. 

The mating season for wild giant pandas is typically from March to May, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Sichuan Guancha-Global Times