Huge lab for protection of rare animals opens in Giant Panda National Park

Covering 27,134 square kilometers -- three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States -- the park is expected to help wild pandas living in isolation on six mountains across the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu to mingle and strengthen their gene pool.

More than 80 percent of the world's wild pandas live in Sichuan which accounts for about three-quarters of the area of the park, with the rest in Shaanxi and Gansu.

The Giant Panda National Park is one of the regions with the most complex terrains and the most abundant wildlife resources on the globe, according to Zhang Hemin, deputy chief of the lab.