Delays allow beloved panda to stay in San Diego a little longer
Monday February 17, 2003SAN DIEGO (AP) After a blitz of newspaper, radio and TV ads urging residents to say one last goodbye to Hua Mei, the giant panda remains in town nearly six months after she was scheduled to leave for China.
Hua Mei, the first U.S.-born giant panda to survive into adolescence, can look forward to three more months of munching bamboo and panda biscuits at the San Diego Zoo after a number of delays, including paperwork problems in Washington and temperamental weather.
High temperatures made it difficult to comfortably move her last fall, while cold weather in China prevents her from leaving now. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took longer than expected to authorize the permits required to move the panda.
Zoo officials expect Hua Mei will end up making the trip sometime in May. She will have a permanent home at the Wolong Nature Reserve, where her mother, Bai Yun, was born and her father, Shi Shi, was taken from the wild.
Meanwhile, Gao Gao, the zoo's new male panda and Shi Shi's replacement, has arrived. He has been in mandatory isolation at the zoo hospital for the past few weeks and is expected to make his public debut in the next few weeks.
Under the terms of the 12-year loan that brought Shi Shi and Bai Yun to the San Diego Zoo in 1996, the bears remain the property of China. As Shi Shi's replacement, Gao Gao will stay in San Diego at least six more years, zoo spokeswoman Sharon Dewar said.
The loan agreement also specifies that all pandas born at the zoo be sent to China when they turn 3. Hua Mei's third 3rd birthday was Aug. 21.
``The Chinese want to make a big thing of Hua Mei,'' said Carmi Penny, the San Diego Zoo's curator of mammals. ``Her arrival is a fairly significant event. It's the first time a panda born outside the country has come to China.''
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