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Pandas Gallery
Gov. Gen. panders for pandas in China
Posted:2010-7-5|Source:internet|No. of Views:
CHENGDU, China ¡ª Michaelle Jean did a little panda-diplomacy Sunday in a bid to seal a deal that would see China send two Giant Pandas to Canada.
During a tour of Chengdu Panda Base, the Governor General cuddled 11-month-old Yali, who was born at the base, and cooed: ¡°We¡¯re ready to take Yali to Canada. Yali wants to go to Canada.¡±
Later, at lunch, she raised the subject again with the governor of Sichuan province, home to the vast majority of China¡¯s pandas. And, there is some expectation that she may even press President Hu Jintao on the panda issue when she meets him in Beijing on Monday.
Zoos in Toronto, Calgary and Granby, Que., want to collectively ¡°adopt¡± two pandas and are working hard to make it happen. Their bid needs the approval of Beijing, however, and while Hu appeared to be on board when he visited Ottawa last month, Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung, chairman of the Panda Acquisition Task Force at the Toronto Zoo, clearly won¡¯t be content until the deal is signed, sealed and the pandas are delivered.
Cheung, who is travelling in the Governor General¡¯s delegation, said he expected it will take ¡°two, three, maybe four years¡± before the pandas arrive in Canada and he warned a lot can happen in that time.
China only sends pandas to its ¡°friends,¡± Cheung said, and its ¡°special friends¡± get a special price, too.
Pandas are given on loan, and only for 11 or 12 years, and they are not free.
The going rate demanded by China is $1 million a year, according to Cheung, but ¡°special friends¡± can sometimes get them for half the price.
¡°We¡¯d like to be China¡¯s good friend,¡± he laughed.
It¡¯s because of the costs that the three zoos are combining their bid, but Cheung said it also makes operational sense. Zoos in the United States have found that for the first three years they had pandas, visitors lined up to see them, but after that zoo attendance returned to normal levels.
Winnipeg¡¯s Assiniboine Park Zoo is the only Canadian zoo to have played host to Giant Pandas and that was only for a few months in 1989.
The six-day China visit is likely the Governor General¡¯s swan song. Her term of office ends at the end of September and for the first time Sunday her thoughts seemed to be moving on from Rideau Hall to her new job as a United Nations special envoy helping rebuild her native Haiti after last January¡¯s devastating earthquake.
As she entered the gates of Xiang¡¯E primary school and saw the impressive campus that Canadian funds and expertise built from the ashes of the former school that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, she looked around in awe. The buildings are all wood framed, which makes them less susceptible to earthquake damage, and they were ready for occupation just 16 months after the quake.
¡°This is feasible,¡± she said. ¡°If it¡¯s feasible here, it¡¯s feasible in Haiti for sure.¡±
Jean cuts loose from the tightly focused working agenda she has followed since last Wednesday to visit the Great Wall and the Forbidden City on Monday, but quickly reverts to her viceregal role for a bilateral meeting and an official dinner with President Hu in the evening.
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