Taipei Zoo threw a party yesterday to celebrate the fifth birthday of Yuan Zai (圓仔), the first giant panda to be born in Taiwan.
Yuan Zai was born at the zoo on July 6, 2013, and has been a big attraction ever since.
The zoo invited members of the public to the party, for which zookeepers made two special birthday cakes from her favorite foods, including ice cubes, apples and corn steam buns.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Despite the excitement of those in attendance, Yuan Zai showed little interest in the cakes, which she sniffed a few times before deciding to stroll around her enclosure.
She later returned to the cakes and grabbed an apple on top of one of them, taking several bites before throwing it aside.
Zookeepers said that she is experiencing pseudocyesis, or a phantom pregnancy, a phenomenon that occurs when mature pandas begin menstruation.
Yuan Zai became sexually mature at the age of four. This year, the signs of pseudocyesis have been obvious, zoo spokesman Eric Tsao (曹先紹) said.
When asked if she would be mated with a panda from another country, Tsao said that the matter would be discussed at an international conference on giant panda conservation in November.
Wang I-ming (王怡敏), head of Taipei Zoo’s Giant Panda Hall, said that Yuan Zai has been placed on the mating list of an international committee on giant panda breeding techniques.
In addition, Taipei Zoo has good relations with the Wolong National Nature Reserve’s conservation center for giant pandas in China, Wang said, adding that he hopes the right arrangements would be made for Yuan Zai.
However, sources familiar with the matter said that China maintains strict control over the breeding of giant pandas, which are found only in China.
Yuan Zai was bred using artificial insemination. Her parents, Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), were given to Taiwan in December 2008 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy.”
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods