Beijing, April 17 (IANS) Green corridors will be built linking 16 forest reserve areas in northwest China to help giant pandas from different groups "make friends" and "seek their Mr. or Miss Right," forest officials said.
The corridors, several kilometres wide, in Shaanxi province will be built by planting trees and grass and digging tunnels under highways in the next five years, the provincial forest department said.
The province has 22 pandas in captivity and 273 in the wild, which live in 16 reserve zones, Xinhua reported.
The zones are cut off from one another by mountains, rivers or roads, making it impossible for pandas from different zones to meet and mate, officials said.
By linking the different zones together, inbreeding can also be prevented with different panda groups being given the scope to mingle with one another.