- CHENGDU, China: Freed from quarantine, American-born panda Tai Shan has paced around his new home in southwest China as he was put on public display for the first time since his much-anticipated arrival in the country.
Visitors and staff cheered and waved as the 4 1/2-year-old panda born and raised at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., rolled up in a green bright buggy to his enclosure at a panda breeding base in Sichuan province.
He was released Tuesday from a metal cage into a 320 sq.
feet (30 sq. meter) room attached to a large garden enclosure at the Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base.
The staff of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, which manages the breeding base, said Tai Shan was in good health and responding well to his new surroundings.
