World's Oldest Giant Panda Looks Forward to Record-Breaking Birthday

The oldest giant panda living in captivity will celebrate her 37th birthday this summer, an age equivalent to more than 100 human years.

A panda from Hong Kong named Jia Jia enters the record books this summer when she turns 37, an age comparable to that of a human centenarian. 

Though Jia Jia's exact birthday is unknown, it is known she was born in the summer of 1978. She moved to Hong Kong in 1999, when she and another panda were gifted to the city on its handover to China from British colonial rule. 

According to her carers at the Ocean Park theme park in Hong Kong, Jia Jia, whose name means 'good,' is in remarkably good health in light of her age.

"She’s had a few ups and downs, but she always manages to bounce back and look surprisingly good for years after that," said Jia Jia's veterinarian, Paolo Martelli.

36-year-old giant panda Jia Jia, walks into a cage where health checkups are performed, at the Hong Kong Ocean Park, China July 9, 2015

© REUTERS / Tyrone Siu

The latest giant panda census in 2014 found there were 1,864 giant pandas in the wild, an increase of 17 percent in the past decade.

"While still very low, this represents a real success story, with numbers increasing from around 1,000 in the late 1970s," said the World Wildlife Fund, which was invited by the Chinese government to work in China to help conserve the giant panda population in the 1970s.

The WWF estimates the average lifespan of a giant panda in the wild at 14-20 years, and up to 30 years in captivity. The record for oldest giant panda belongs to Du Du, a panda from China who was born in 1962, and died at the age of 37 in 1999.