Vienna zoo's panda Fu Long heads for China

Coupling of pandas in captivity is extremely difficult, since females are only fertile three or four days a year.

Fu Long the panda, Europe's first to be conceived naturally while in captivity, is to leave his home town of Vienna for China next week, the Schoenbrunn Zoo in the Austrian capital said Thursday.

The giant panda, whose name means "Happy Dragon" in Mandarin, is to be transferred to a conservation and research centre called Bifengxia Base in the Sichuan province, which is home to 60 other pandas and where it is hoped he will breed.

Fu Long is now just over two and his birth in August 2007 was a sensation because he was the first panda in Europe to be conceived naturally in captivity rather than by artificial insemination.

- We're sad that our little one is leaving us. But we're proud that we're returning a strong, healthy panda to   China - said the zoo's director Dagmar Schratter.

Chinese ambassador Wu Ken said he hoped the panda's parents, who are still in Schoenbrunn - will give the zoo a new baby in the spring. -

Fu Long, who now weighs more than 50 kilogrammes compared with around 100 grammes when he was born, has become Schoenbrunn's star attraction, similar to the polar bear Knut in Berlin.

Coupling of pandas in captivity is extremely difficult, since females are only fertile three or four days a year. Another panda was born at a Madrid zoo in 1982 thanks to artificial insemination.

Less than 1,600 giant pandas remain in the wild, according to the Vienna zoo.

In 1984, China began its long-term panda lending programme to foreign zoos, which pay up to a million dollars a year to house the creatures.