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?
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