A much-loved panda that died in a Chinese zoo in the eastern province of Shandong has been stuffed and put on display in a glass cabinet, state media reported yesterday.
Taotao, a 36-year-old panda, the equivalent of 108 human years, died at the beginning of February of brain thrombosis and a cerebral hemorrhage, Xinhua news agency reported.
She had been living at the zoo in Jinan, the capital of Shandong, and would normally have been buried in a nature reserve in the northwestern province of Gansu where she was born, Xinhua said.
But given her influence on the city, Taotao was stuffed and put on display, Xinhua quoted Ma Zhan, a Jinan zoo official, as saying.
She became the “Ambassador of Harmonious Zoology,” the report said.
“I’m learning to paint. I will paint Taotao and present it to the zoo as a keepsake,” Zhao Sining, a fan of the panda who came to see her several times a year, was quoted as saying.
Pandas are much-loved creatures in China, particularly because they are one of the world’s most endangered species.
As of last November, China had 239 giant pandas in captivity, with another 27 living outside the country. About 1,590 more pandas are thought to be living in the wild.
Experts in China are desperately trying to make the notoriously sex-shy creatures mate to ensure their survival, using measures as extreme as panda pornography or “sexercises.”
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