The one-year-old panda, named "Cheng Cheng" by vets, was found whimpering in a tree in the nature reserve of Zhouzhi County on Wednesday. It was bleeding from its leg, ankle and eye.

A veterinarian feeds the injured wild giant panda after operation at the Shaanxi Province Rare Wildlife Rescue & Breeding Research Center in Xi'an, December 16. The panda with fracture was found in an conservation area in Zhouzhi County on December 12. It was named "Cheng Cheng" and recovered well after a diaplasis operation in the research center on December 15.

The panda, whose sex has yet to be identified, was sent to the Shaanxi Rare Wild Animal Rescue and Breeding Center in Zhouzhi for treatment on Thursday, according to Ma Qingyi, president of the animal hospital of the center.

Ma said veterinarians carried out surgery on Cheng Cheng on Saturday evening.

"Cheng Cheng can now move slowly and its mood is much better now," Ma said.

"But the panda is only accepting milk and has refused the bamboo offered by workers," he added.

The Zhouzhi nature reserve has 25 wild giant pandas and a 1,300-hectare bamboo forest.

Giant pandas are one of the world's most endangered species, with 1,590 pandas estimated to live in the wild, mostly in the mountains of southwest China.

Veterinarians give diaplasis operation to the injured wild giant panda at the Shaanxi Province Rare Wildlife Rescue & Breeding Research Center in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, December 16.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2007)