Australian and Chinese officials urged two bamboo-munching giant pandas yesterday to consider reproducing during their 10-year residency Down Under.
Wang Wang and Funi, on loan from China, arrived at the Adelaide Zoo two weeks ago but were officially welcomed yesterday by leaders at the opening ceremony of their A$8 million (US$7.25 million) enclosure. Their exhibit will open to the public today.
“Look after yourselves, keep healthy and active, eat your greens and maybe, when the time is right, think about starting a family,” Governor General Quentin Bryce said in a speech directed at Funi and Wang Wang, who were sprawled against nearby boulders, chewing bamboo shoots. “There are not enough of you in this world.”
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Junsai (章均賽) said he was already thinking of names for a possible panda cub.
“Wang Wang and Funi carry the friendship and greetings from the Chinese people,” he said, explaining that Funi means “Lucky Girl” and Wang Wang means “Net Net.”
“Who can rule out the possibility that the ‘lucky girl’ will fall into the ‘net’ of love and later have a lovely baby?” Zhang said. “This would be a great achievement of the joint Australia-China conservation program.”
The pandas, three and four years old, are the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere. Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) offered the pandas as a goodwill gesture during a 2007 visit to Australia.
Funi and Wang Wang will be kept in separate enclosures until breeding season.
Wild female giant pandas are sexually mature at about age 5, and males at 6 or 7 years old. They may mature earlier in captivity due to better nutrition.
One reason pandas are endangered is that they are notoriously poor breeders, with females having only three days a year in which they can conceive. Some males never succeed at natural breeding, so artificial insemination has become common practice in breeding captive pandas.
Zoo CEO Chris West said the animals have adapted easily to Australian bamboo — they each eat 40kg a day — and to their new enclosure. Because they are in quarantine for another two weeks, they will remain behind glass walls before being allowed into the outside area that includes bamboo plants and refrigerated rocks to keep them comfortable in Adelaide’s hot summers.
The pandas are expected to generate more than A$600 million for the South Australia state economy during their time here, with an anticipated 262,000 foreign visitors and 1.3 million Australians visiting Adelaide to see the animals.
The two pandas had been living at the Bifengxia Giant Panda Breeding Center in Yaan City in southwestern Sichuan Province, after the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center where they were living was destroyed in a massive earthquake last year.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the