Wolong Pandas!

Quartz92

Quartz92

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I was just watching Pandamonium (sp) on Discovery and they said that, there is so many pandas at the facility that it is hard to look after them and that to gain all the food is hard to get!

I think that they should send more pandas out to North America, Europe and Australia!

If they are complaining so much send some out!

Comments anyone?
 
Sounds like a good idea, but then they might have to stop zoos paying for them which I doubt they'd want to do.
 
Well, they shouldn't be a million bucks a year!
 
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I just meant that I don't think enough zoos would have money or want to pay for them.
 
Well, there are whispers that Tai will be staying a while longer. No word on Su Lin's departure either. Her return was postponed because they did not have room for her.
 
@ Ashley, I meant to say shouldn't so more zoos could aquire them.

@ Critterblog, the space issue is the reason why I think they should be sent to other zoos!
 
Ah right ok, mix up :)
 
Your comments are more an indication of your personalised wish list than a realistic zoo project proposal. It is a well-publicised fact that the Wolong station was completely demolished last year in the dramatic earthquake that rocked across Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces in P.R. China. Most pandas were transferred to other panda centers (Beijing, Bifengxia and Chengdu, Fuzhou and northern China), while the center was demolished. This month building work has started on a new center some 10-15 kms from the current location in a more open less disaster-prone section of the Wolong Nature Reserve. Most pandas will go back here and the new center will have the possibility to accomodate a larger reintroduction project section - the ultimate Chinese goal -.

And for convenience sake, you equally forget to take note of the effects on wild population numbers in the giant pandas in and around Wolong NR (and some other Sichuan giant panda nature reserves) the quake has had. Quite a bit of their resource base - the bamboo - has been uprooted and pandas have been going hungry. Meaning more relocation space required in the current panda centers in P.R. China. Or is any western nation able to take in on average 100 pandas in one go? Hardly realistic do'nt you think.

And lastly, you forget, for convenience sake, construction costs in the P.R. of China are a fraction of what would be required for an exhibit in a Western zoo (average $10 mio. investment) and multiply this by a factor * 350-400 pandas to be rescued, in situ conservation is the best option.

So, No can do (perhaps Sun Wukong can add on to that as well). LOL!!!
(Pse. do not take this personal, it is not meant to be derisory in any way, just mirror what your suggestions entail)


K.B.
 
No offense taken, but I will argue my point :p

The documentary was filmed before the earthquake had happened and the centre still didn't have then money nor the room to keep up with the pandas. All I was saying is instead of complaining about space send a few more out, to the zoo willing to spend the money on the pandas. I never said western zoos needed to take 300 pandas, but if Wolong is complaining about space then send 20 or so over and then im sure they can accomadate for what the have then!
 
where do the millions of pounds go that foreign zoos pay to exhibit pandas go then? i was under the impression that the monkey went directly to Giant panda propogation? ie to the panda breeding facillities themselves!
 
I was under the impression that the funds went to Giant Pand in-situ conservation, not captive breeding programs.
 
okapikpr said:
I was under the impression that the funds went to Giant Pand in-situ conservation, not captive breeding programs.
Click to expand...

Okapikpr,

Affirmative, the US giant panda zoos mio. grants all go towards in situ conservation (the WWF-sponsorred giant panda reserve linkage programme). Those funds - incidentally - have assisted the creation of forest corridors between reserves, created more robust monitoring programmes (allthough the bummer is ... you are thrice as likely to see a giant panda in captivity than in the wild due to their secretive nature -staying well clear of any human activity, their impenetrable mountain forest habitat and their territoriality towards one-another) that have elucidated their distribution more accurately across the central mountain chain (the figure had been first revised up to 1,600, whereas new genetic evidence in one giant panda reserve (and if that evidence is replicated across their entire distribution in central China) has shown significant under-counting (the true figure may already be over the magic 3,000 figure).


Just San Diego Zoo - and perhaps some other US giant panda holding institutions - put up an emergency appeal last year in the wake of the Sichuan quake to assist the Wolong Center relocate its giant pandas elsewhere short-term and clear the Center area as well as re-build for the immediate needs of the Wolong Center (when the decision on the long-term future of the Center was not yet taken).

Wolong Center will be NEVER no more. Perhaps, even the Wolong Nature Reserve park HQ nearby will be no more (as the site is now deemed inconvenient and disaster prone with its small ravine with towering mountains either side location).
 
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