Adorable giant panda cubs have been seen cheekily climbing onto mother's back at a research base in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Their fun interaction was filmed at Wolong Shenshuping Base and Dujiangyan Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP).
One video, taken on March 7, features panda mother Mei Mei calmly lying on the ground as her cub playfully climbed over her body. Mei Mei, born at the center in July 2018, is the offspring of Cao Cao, a wild panda who successfully mated in the wild.
In a separate video filmed on March 11, two mischievous cubs attempted to clamber onto their mother Yi Ran who managed to escape from them, leaving the cubs tumbling playfully onto the ground. Yi Ran was born in July 2012 at the center.
The CCRCGP is a world-leading institution for the breeding and conservation of one of China's national treasures. The center has also established a global platform for promoting international cooperation and exchanges involving 18 zoos from 16 countries and regions, as well as 39 domestic animal breeding institutions and more than 10 scientific research institutes.
Playful giant panda cubs captured on video at Sichuan research bases
Smart technologies have reshaped China's ecological and environmental monitoring system, Huang Runqiu, minister of Ecology and Environment, said Thursday in Beijing on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress(NPC).
"Regarding ecological and environmental monitoring, we have been promoting the digitalization, informatization, and intelligentization of the entire monitoring process in recent years, reshaping the ecological and environmental monitoring system. For instance, in water environment monitoring and sampling, we have used intelligent drones which can quickly locate sampling points, collect samples accurately, return rapidly, and they are safe and reliable, improving work efficiency by over 70 percent. They are particularly advantageous for sampling during flood seasons and in remote areas," Huang told the press.
"In terms of environmental sample analysis, we have developed 'lights-out laboratories' in recent years. As the name suggests, these labs operate without lights and are unattended. Through robotic arms, robots, and intelligent management systems, they achieve full-process automation and intelligence from sample handover, testing, and analysis to report generation. This has significantly enhanced work efficiency, increasing it by more than eightfold compared to traditional labs. More importantly, it reduces human interference, human error, and even data falsification," he said.
Thanks to the improved ecological and environmental supervision capabilities, the number of environmental violation cases nationwide has decreased from 130,000 five years ago to 43,000 last year, representing a decline of 68 percent, Huang said.
The minister said China has already applied environmental DNA technology in the biodiversity monitoring work.
"In the field of biodiversity monitoring, monitoring aquatic organisms remains a weak point. However, significant progress has been made in recent years as we have developed environmental DNA technology. Although this chip is very small in size, it contains DNA detection information for aquatic organisms, including the finless porpoise and the Chinese sucker, from 19 state-controlled sections in the Jiangsu segment of the Yangtze River. The results showed that over the past five years, more than 20 species of aquatic organisms have increased in this river section, fully demonstrating the tangible effectiveness of the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River," Huang said while showing a chip to reporters.
The 14th NPC, China's national legislature, concluded its fourth session on Thursday.
Smart technologies reshape China's ecological, environmental monitoring system: minister
