Beijing will start building a new giant panda breeding center as early as next month after last year’s 8.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed much of their old center, AFP reported, citing state media. The new center in the Wolong Nature Reserve will replace a destroyed base in Sichuan province where most of China’s captive pandas were kept before the earthquake. Huang Jianhua, the reserve’s Communist party chief, said a new location about 10km from the old site has been selected. The new center will cost US$230 million, with most of the funding coming from Hong Kong, Huang said. Five Wolong staff and one panda were killed in the earthquake, while two pandas were injured and one is still missing.
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