World's Oldest Male Panda Succumbs to Cancer

At 31 years of age, Pan Pan, the world’s oldest male panda, died on Wednesday, leaving over 130 descendants – a quarter of all the captive-bred pandas – behind.

According to the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas, which described his passing as “heart-wrenching,” Pan Pan – whose name means “hope” in Mandarin – had been suffering from cancer. He passed away in Sichuan, a southwestern province in China.

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“In the past three days, Pan Pan’s condition rapidly deteriorated, losing consciousness and the ability to move and eat,” the organization said on a verified social media account, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.

“He left us forever after rescue efforts by medical personnel proved futile. We hope that there is no more suffering from illness in heaven.”

Pan Pan was referred to as a “hero father” after fathering more cubs over the years than would the average Giant Panda. Giant Pandas are notorious for their low reproductive rates, which is why the most recent estimates show about only 1,864 adult pandas in the wild, with over 500 living in captivity.

Habitat loss and fragmentation due to resource extraction, logging and the clearing of land for agriculture and infrastructure, have been identified as the “gravest threats to the survival of the species” by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

In past years, this led the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to classify the species as endangered.

However, conservation of nature reserves, bamboo planting, farmer subsidies and commercial programmes have all helped increase the Giant Panda population, causing the species to be reclassified as “vulnerable,” according to the IUCN’s latest assessment.

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According to conservation experts, captivity also helps extend the lives of Giant Pandas who, in the wild, would normally only live up to about 20 years of age. Though Pan Pan himself was born in the wild in the southwestern province of Sichuan in 1985, he was soon captured.

Now, the world’s oldest living panda is a 36-year-old female named Bassi, according to Xinhua news agency.

Pan Pan was about 100 years old in human years, according to a keeper at the conservation facility in Sichuan where Pan Pan lived.