Giant Pandas relocated for mating

YA'AN CITY, China (CNN) -- Two giant pandas were flown to their home in Bifengxia Town of Ya'an City, Southwest China's Sichuan Province on a mating mission recently after living in east China's Nanjing for four years.  

Duo Duo and Cui Cui, both female and five and a half years old, were among eight 'Olympic pandas" that were chosen to stay in Beijing for half a year for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games.  

They were sent from the Ya'an-based Bifengxia Panda Base of the Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Sichuan, one of China's major panda habitats, to the Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo in east China's Jiangsu Province in 2008.  

As they reached adulthood, the zoo decided to send them back to Sichuan to get them ready to mate.

Duo Duo and Cui Cui have been a major attraction of the zoo.

The two giant pandas were put in a cargo cabin with enough oxygen and given enough space to move in the plane.

Pandas are solitary animals which only come together to mate. Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered animals. There are about 1,590 pandas living in China's wild, mostly in Sichuan and the northwestern provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.

Through 2007, there were 239 captive bred giant pandas in the country.