First Giant Panda Released Into the Wild

First Giant Panda Is Released Into the Wild: "With two barks and a charge at a film crew, Xiang Xiang the panda today became the first captive-born giant panda to be released into the wild."

the panda was released in the western end of the Wolong Nature Reserve, a mountainous region covering 770 square miles (1,994 square kilometers) with a hundred peaks more than 16,400 feet (5,000 meters) high.

"It's an area that's known to be frequented by other pandas,"

Supported by funding from the National Geographic Society, USCEF and research institutes are working to identify potential new giant panda habitat in the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary.

"Even if captive-bred pandas are successfully released into the wild, WWF does not believe that captive breeding alone is an effective conservation method to save giant pandas," said Dermot O'Gorman, WWF China's country representative.

"Protecting the pandas' habitat is the most important step in giant panda conservation," he said.