China: 25 pandas born through artificial insemination in 2005

China's endangered pandas are having a baby boom.

The country's breeding centers reported a record-high 25 births this year through artificial insemination, and 21 of the cubs survived, news reports said Friday.

There are believed to be 1,590 giant pandas living in the wild, with another 161 in zoos worldwide, the government says. Scientists have tried since the 1960s to increase their numbers through captive breeding and artificial insemination.

"The year 2005 has witnessed the largest number of surviving newborn pandas in China's history of artificial fertilization," the China Daily newspaper quoted Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu-based Giant Panda Breeding Technology Committee, as saying.

"We owe this achievement to Chinese scientists," Zhang said. "They have acquired mature technologies and valuable experience after years of hard work."

Sixteen of the surviving baby pandas were born at the Wolong Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where most pandas in the wild live, according to Zhang.

Last year, 30 artificially fertilized giant pandas produced 12 offspring but only nine survived, according to the reports.

Zhang and his team have shown pandas videos of mating in the wild in hopes of encouraging them to breed, reported AP, according to the China Daily. P.T.