A video said to show panda cruelty at China’s Chengdu panda research facility has gone viral and the internet exploded with debate.
The video appeared to show staff at the research facility mistreating the animals, reported the BBC News. Others said the rough handling, seen in the video linked to by various sites, was typical of what it takes to care for the powerful cubs which can be seen trying to bite handlers.
The Telegraph identified the facility as the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and said the Chinese internet had erupted with arguing over the panda's treatment and explanations of how aggressive pandas can be.
Panda keeper Guo Jingpeng defended himself, reportedly telling the Chinese state news agency Xinhua that the cubs were being violent and had bitten him while they were being fed.
"The cub bit my hand really hard," Guo told Xinhua, per BBC. "Its teeth cut into my flesh and my hand started bleeding. When it tried to bite me again, I pushed it away out of instinct."
Some on China'a popular micro-blogging website Sina Weibo charged that Guo should resign over the video, BBC said. Others charged that the video showed "blatant animal abuse."
"I don't care what he has to say, they were just babies," said Sina Weibo user Loo Jiaying, from Beijing, the BBC News noted. "It made me so angry to watch him throw a defenseless cub around. If he was so worried about his safety, why wasn't he wearing protective equipment like gloves?"
Another Weibo user called into question the research facility itself.
"We have always thought that the Chengdu center was set up to save our national animal," the user said, per BBC. "It did great work in the past and made many Chinese people happy with its panda baby pictures. This incident has definitely changed my opinion about its operations and objectives."
The Telegraph said pandas were once on the "endangered" list, but were reclassified as "vulnerable" last year. It said there are currently 2,000 giants pandas in existence, twice as many as what there were in 1995 and 1,600 documented in 2003.
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