Yesterday a friend sent me the link leading to the article announcing the arrival of two polar bear cubs in China last Wednesday. I was really puzzled for a while... Have you ever heard about polar bears born by the end of July...? And again to be hand-raised as it was the case with Taotao who by the way was also born a bit late (March 09 in 2008), and all this happening in the same park...I even recalled the lady feeding the little ones...Too much of a coincedence...
A keeper feeds a polar bear cub in Laohutan Ocean Park in Dalian of northeast China's Liaoning Province, July 29, 2009. 
Two polar bear cubs, one female and one male, were born on Wednesday in Laohutan Ocean.... 
A keeper holds the polar bear cubs...
Two polar bear cubs are kept in a nursing box....Und für alle, die sich wie ich über dieses späte Geburtsdatum wundern...Hier ein Auszug aus einem Artikel, den ich gefunden habe, vielleicht ein kleiner Hinweis, der zu Antworten führt...Es scheint, dass hier in die natürlichen Abläufe eingegriffen wurde, Laohutan gehört mit zu einer Gruppe von Projekten, die Genforschung zu Tieren betreiben, die unter extremen Umweltbedingungen leben, ausgewählt wurden neben Kaiserpinguinen, Tibetanischen Antilopen auch Eisbären. Wie weitgehend wird in dem Artikel nicht deutlich, in einem weiteren Artikel gibt es jedoch einen Hinweis auf Taotao (den ich damals nicht hatte), als erstes künstlich gezeugte Eisbärbaby...("This polar bear cub is the first born from artificial breeding in the park."/Quelle)
And for all those who are as me wondering about that late birth in the year...maybe this is a hint of what is going on...It seems that natural course has been manipulated, Laohutan OceanPark forms part of a genome project... This is what I found so far beside another hint (which I hadn't when I did my postings) about Taotao as "first born from artificial breeding in the park":
"BGI-Shenzhen, in association with several other research institutes, announced today (27.04.2009)the launch of three new genome projects that focus on animals living in extreme environments. The three selected genomes are those of two polar animals: the polar bear and emperor penguin, and one altiplano animal: the Tibetan antelope.
These projects will be carried out using Next-generation sequencing technologies, which have already enabled rapid, accurate, and cost effective completion of several other large genome projects at BGI-Shenzhen, including the Panda and the first Asian individual genomes. This powerful technology will be used here to construct complete genome sequences for each of these animals and to carry out detailed genome-wide analyses, including the identification of gene function and determination of the genomic basis of their unique evolution and extreme environmental-adaptation. (...)
The institutions associated with this project currently include BGI Shenzhen, Illumina Inc., the Dalian laohutan Ocean Park Research Center, Qinghai University, the Institute of Oceanology (Chinese academy of Sciences), and the polar Research Institute of China. "(whole article here)
Sources & photo credits: Xinhua & Ren Yong
Related posts: Taotao's first birthday, Taotao - the hand-raised polar bear in China
Reference to artificial breeding of Taotao , Genome projects launched for three extreme-environment animals/27.04.09
2 Kommentare:
Ich bin von Eisbären begeistert, aber das hat mit Zucht nicht mehr viel zu tun. Es freut mich nicht, sondern macht mich traurig
I hope they proceed with "extreme caution." It partly gives me hope for polar bears, since they are such an endangered species. But, polar bears raised by humans cannot function in the wild. In that case, it will not help the species overall. Also, I would hate to think that they are doing any sort of experiments on the polar bears... Too awful to think about.
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