By Li Hongmei

A zoo in central China's Henan Province that covered up the death of a giant panda is now under investigation.

Earlier this month, visitors to the zoo in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, noticed that seven-year-old female panda Jin Yi was missing.

Zhengzhou Zoo staff said she was on a breeding program.

But Jin Yi, one of two pandas in the zoo, had in fact died of cardio-respiratory failure caused by massive abdominal bleeding on February 9.

Now the bureau of parks and greenery in Zhengzhou has launched a probe, Chengdu Business News reported yesterday.

Bureau officials met last Friday to discuss the case and criticized zoo staff for attempting to conceal the truth, Zhang Tao, a member of the investigation group and deputy chief of park management section of the bureau, told the newspaper.

The probe will seek to discover if the zoo made mistakes in its care of Jin Yi and establish why staff lied about her death.

Initially, zoo officials claimed that Jin Yi had been sent to the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Wolong, in southwestern Sichuan Province, to try to get her pregnant.

Li Chaojun, chief of the zoo's animal management department, even explained that she had come into heat earlier than expected as the temperature in her enclosure was too high.

Zoo staff also lied to bureau officials, said the newspaper.

When bureau staff called to ask why Jin Yi was missing, zoo staff first said she was dead.

However, a member of zoo staff quickly called back to say that was a mistake and that the animal was in fact alive.

Only after the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center confirmed Jin Yi's death on February 12 did Zhengzhou Zoo drop the pretence.

Li denied that the zoo's pandas were fed an inappropriate diet and lived in poor conditions.

Jin Yi lived next to monkeys, which would have disturbed her, Xiong Liangbo, panda breeder at the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, told Henan Business Daily.

Xiong also said bamboo was in short supply before Jin Yi died, due to snowy conditions.

But Li insisted the pandas were supplied with fresh bamboo and fruit and that feeding was the responsibility of the protection and research center under an agreement.

Jin Yi was one of six pandas exhibited at Beijing Zoo in 2009 for celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.