Friday, October 26, 2007
Watch Out for Pandas: They Bite!
They might look sweet and cuddly, but don't be fooled by appearances. Pandas can be pretty fierce creatures.
Yesterday at a Beijing Zoo, eight-year-old Gu Gu was minding his own business, when 15-year old Li Xitao decided it would be a good idea to scale the wall, and climb into his cage. Why anybody would jump into a cage with a panda that weighs over 240 lbs during lunch time is beyond me, and Gu Gu wasn't too happy about the situation.
Instead of chomping on bamboo, he took a bite out of Li's legs, and Li was promptly escorted to the hospital.
This isn't the first time Gu Gu has had unwelcome visitors. Last year a drunk man jumped into the cage for a bear hug, and ended up with two "kisses" aka bite marks of his own on his legs.
In a sense, I sympathize with these two men. Who hasn't had their own unwelcome animal encounters? When I was 3, I wanted to give my grandparents' dog a kiss goodnight. Instead of giving him a kiss, I ended up jumping on him, and breaking his leg. He repaid the favor, and sent me to the emergency room with stitches on my face. I still have the little scars.
I wasn't much luckier the next year when I went to the petting zoo and got attacked by a goose, who bit me in the stomach.
Needless to say, I don't have any pets at this point in my life, even though after about age 5, my luck with animals miraculously changed. I haven't had any bad encounters since, but you can never be too careful.
Of course, I'm not really in the same league as the two men who jumped into the cage with the panda. For starters, a 24 pound dog is a bit more manageable than a 240 pound hungry panda bear. I also didn't have to scale a fence to have my unfortunate animal encounters.
Nonetheless, it's important to remember that there's a reason for cages at the zoo, and that animals don't simply exist for human entertainment. Still, despite this bad panda press, I think the sales of panda paraphernalia in China and worldwide is still pretty safe. The sale of Gu Gu material might even be more secure.
What celebrity doesn't mind some extra publicity?
Giant pandas: the facts
Giant pandas are native to south and east Asia. They live in the mountains of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, central China.
As its ursine appearance suggests, it is a member of the bear family; similar in size to an American black bear, the giant panda stands 2-3 feet tall at the shoulder and can be up to six feet long nose to tail. Males can weigh up to 250lb (115kg).
Despite their Latin name, Carnivora ursidae, giant pandas are almost exclusively vegetarian; 99% of their diet consists of bamboo, with the rest being other grasses and occasional small animals. Their carnivorous heritage has left them ill-equipped to digest tough bamboo, and pandas need to eat for between 10 and 16 hours a day to get sufficient nutrients. Their distinctive coloration, white with black patches around their muzzle, eyes, ears, legs and shoulders, is thought to provide them with camouflage in their habitat, dappled with light in the forest and often covered with snow, ice and rocks. Although their teddy-bear appearance is thought to be cute, the giant panda is a powerful and dangerous creature, and attacks on humans are not unheard of. Pandas are slow to reproduce, as litters usually only consist of one cub, which will stay with its mother for up three years after birth. In the wild, therefore, a female panda can only have new young once every two years at most. This slow breeding rate, combined with a seeming reluctance to reproduce in captivity, has contributed to the panda's precarious grip on existence in the face of human-related survival pressures: they are threatened by habitat loss caused by farming and forest clearance, which has driven them from the lowlands into the remote mountain regions they now inhabit. The giant panda is on the World Conservation Union's "Red List" of endangered animals, with as few as 1,600 left in the wild and about a tenth that number in zoos and breeding centres, mainly in China. |
El panda del Zoo de Washington
Zoo borrows giant pandas, hopes for baby
Original Story Here
Two giant pandas are expected to double visitor numbers to Adelaide Zoo after they arrive in about 12 months।
The pandas, Wangwang and Funi, will come to Adelaide on loan from China and and it is hoped the pair will breed to help ensure the survival of the endangered species.
They are expected to be a major attraction for tourists from interstate and overseas.
A spokesman said about 400,000 people currently visit the zoo each year but that could double within two years of the arrival of Wangwang and Funi. That's what happened at San Diego Zoo in the United States after two pandas took up residence.
The Federal Government today pledged $5 million to build a state-of-the-art panda enclosure if it is returned at next month's election.
"We are delighted to announce the funding today on behalf of the Coalition Government which will allow the zoo to host the only pair of pandas in the southern hemisphere," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
"The pandas are expected to arrive in the next 12 months and will require a purpose-built enclosure to maximise their comfort, breeding potential and allow visitors to enjoy a unique wildlife experience."
The panda loan was formalised by Prime Minister John Howard and Chinese President Hu Jintao during the recent APEC conference in Sydney.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
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Friday, April 6, 2007
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
Panda Poo Paper
They are notoriously picky about their food and suffer from an exceptionally low sex drive. But when it comes to poo, pandas have few peers.
Entrepreneurial Chinese are looking for ways to make a profit from the 44lb (20kg) of excrement produced each day by a single adult male, and help the endangered animals to pay their way.
Officials at Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base are working on a scheme to convert the fibre-rich droppings into high-quality paper.
Pandas, which live mainly on a diet of bamboo, lack an efficient digestive tract and absorb less than 20 per cent of what they eat. Staff at the Chengdu base in Sichuan province, southwest China, are talking to local paper mills to find ways of processing a range of products from the panda waste, from greeting cards, bookmarks, notebooks and even fridge magnets.
Jing Jing, Ke Bi, Ya Ya and the 40 or so other pandas living at the Chengdu breeding base produce about 200 tonnes of excrement a year. Thus the pandas may begin to pay for their keep at the research centre, which spends millions of pounds on raising and breeding the rare animals.
Liao Jun, a researcher, said: “If the stools can be used to make souvenirs, we will not only make a profit but also help the environment.” He told The Times that it would be wasteful not to find a way to recycle panda droppings. “We aren’t interested in doing this for the profits but to recycle the waste. We can use the paper ourselves and we can sell whatever is left over.”
The idea was inspired by a visit to the Chiang Mai zoo in northern Thailand, where keepers have found that their two resident pandas have become a gift that gives. In a day-long process of cleaning the faeces, bleaching with chlorine and drying in the sun, the zoo has already earned a profit of £2,000 from panda paper.
Mr Liao said he expected to see items ranging from wrapping paper and paper handkerchiefs to tourist souvenirs such as fans and picture frames made from excrement. Visitors may even be able to gain a hands-on experience with the raw material if the research centre succeeds with plans to move production into a museum.
Miss Zhao, a base official, said: “Panda dung consists mainly of bamboo and fibre. So we find that visitors don’t find it disgusting at all.”
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Panda porn
Poor pandas have a hard time breeding. Scientists hope to inspire them.
From FOXnews
CHIANG MAI, Thailand —
Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big screen television watching panda porn.Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner, Lin Hui, and serve as an instructional lesson in how to do it right.
So far, it's been a tough sell, the zoo's chief veterinarian, Kanika Limtrakul, said Tuesday.
"Chuang Chuang seems indifferent to the videos; he has no reaction to what he's seeing on TV," Kanika said. "But we're continuing to show him videos and hoping they will leave an impression."
• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.
Pandas are threatened by loss of habitat, poaching and a low reproduction rate. Females in the wild normally have a cub once every two to three years.
There are as few as 1,600 giant pandas in the mountain forests of central China, according to the zoo. An additional 120 are in Chinese breeding facilities and zoos, and about 20 live in zoos outside China.
Zoo officials say Chuang Chuang will be reunited with his partner in about another week. The two pandas have been kept separate since late last year as part of efforts to spark some romance between them.
Chuang Chuang recently was put on a strict diet because zoo officials said he was too heavy to mate. The diet trimmed him down from 331 pounds to 313 pounds.
Thailand rented 6-year-old Chuang Chuang and 5-year-old Lin Hui from China for $250,000 in October 2003 for 10 years. They are expected to generate millions of dollars in revenue from Thai and foreign tourists.
Thank you BoingboingSunday, March 25, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
ghost face killahs
Maybe Lucy Liu in Kill Bill but that's just a weird tangent.
Pandas are the reason why China's still communist. All that panda love needs to be reined in under strict totalitarianism.
