WWF travelers to visit two American-born pandas in China
Mar 22nd, 2010 by wwftravel
Tai Shan in 2008 at the National Zoo. © Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian's National Zoo
Travelers on WWF’s tour to China this summer will likely be among the first visitors to see two American-born giant pandas that returned to their ancestral homeland last month.
Three-year-old Mei Lan, who was born at the Atlanta Zoo, and 4-year-old Tai Shan from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., relocated to China in early February. Chinese and American officials have a longstanding deal that giant pandas are only on loan to the United States for research purposes. They – and any offspring born on U.S. soil – must be returned to China as part of the agreement.
Following a quarantine period, the female Mei Lan moved the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, which WWF travelers will visit on July 1 and 2. Tai Shan, a male, lives at the Bifengxia Panda Base, which is on the WWF tour schedule for July 2 and 3.
“Ever since Tai Shan was born in 2005 and Mei Lan in 2006, both pandas have become endearing goodwill ambassadors for China in the United States,” U.S. Consul General David Brown told the media in Chengdu upon the bears’ arrival. “They, along with their parents and the other pandas on loan from China … occupy a special place in the U.S.-China relationship.”
An estimated 1,600 giant pandas live in the wild in China and nearly 300 are in captive-breeding programs throughout the world. Both Mei Lan and Tai Shan are scheduled to become part of the centers’ breeding programs.
According to The Washington Post, Tai Shan will likely begin breeding in 2012, once he hits 6 ½ years old – the optimal time for male pandas. Mei Shan would begin breeding around age 4 ½.
In the meantime, they’ll both be taking language lessons. Mei Lan, for example, currently knows 20 commands (“paw” and “lie down” among them, according to Atlanta Zoo officials), but she only knows them in English. She’ll be will be assigned a Sichuan-dialect Chinese tutor – the Chinese government advertised for one on the Internet. Tai Shan, meanwhile, will learn Mandarin.
“If I speak Chinese,” veterinarian Wang Chengdong told The Washington Post, “he will get used to Chinese and he can more easily blend in with the rest of the panda group.”
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