Hundreds of visitors swarmed to Panda World zoo in southeast China's Fujian province for the birthday bash Sunday. Basi turned 25, while most giant wild pandas live for only around 12 years.

A picture in the China Daily showed Basi sitting on a stool with a paper crown on her head and a plastic fork in her hand as two zookeepers fed her birthday cake.

For a country fighting an uphill battle to save the giant pandas from extinction, the great lengths local authorities went to celebrate Basi's birthday showed China was eager to promote public awareness in saving pandas.

A song was specially written for the occasion and a special website was created for Basi. So far more than 5,000 people have viewed it, China Daily said.

Special stamps, postcards and calendars were also published for the big day, it said.

Seeming perplexed by all the attention, Basi later went to her cave to enjoy the cake.

All the attention, however, may have little impact on the growing trend of China's development encroaching on the habitats of the giant panda.

New highways, for example, have separated panda habitats into small plots, endangering their existence as research shows groups of fewer than 50 animals will sooner or later die out as inbreeding weakens their reproductive ability.

Giant pandas are also notorious for their lack of interest in sex.

Basi has suffered high blood pressure and a cataract which was removed from her right eye in 2002, the first surgery of its kind on an endangered species, Xinhua news agency said.

As of the end of 2004 China had raised about 160 giant pandas in captivity, while almost 1,500 of the rare animals were believed to be living in the wild in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

Basi was loaned to San Diego Zoo for six months in 1987 to promote wildlife conservation, the China Daily newspaper said.

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