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Dec 5, 2009
Washington loses panda cub
WASHINGTON - IT WAS too sad for some, an example of the US pandering to others: Tai Shan, the four-year-old US-born giant panda, is being sent to China, the National Zoo in Washington announced on Friday. 'No!' chorused a group of seven- and eight-year-olds from Carole Highlands elementary school in suburban Washington on learning the news of Tai Shan's looming departure, which will probably happen early next year. Why did he have to leave? Was he going back to where his parents were from, the largely immigrant group of children asked their teacher Aboussou Dadoua, himself originally from Ivory Coast. 'Maybe it's because we owe China so much money, so they're taking their panda back,' said Desiree Bryce, a mathematics teacher from Hope County Charter School, which was also visiting the zoo. But a few yards away, outside the panda enclosure where Tai Shan sat hunched by a tree stump as he took a morning nap, National Zoo director Steve Monfort told reporters that Tai Shan's return had been on the cards from the day he was born in 2005. Under an agreement between the National Zoo and China, Tai Shan was supposed to have been sent to China in 2007, when he turned two, but the Chinese allowed Washington to keep the panda for two-and-a-half more years. So although Tai Shan's return - or, in reality, his first-ever trip - to China should not have come as a surprise to visitors to Washington's zoo, it did disappoint many of them, not to mention zoo employees. -- AFP
Home > Breaking News > World > Story
Dec 5, 2009
Washington loses panda cub
WASHINGTON - IT WAS too sad for some, an example of the US pandering to others: Tai Shan, the four-year-old US-born giant panda, is being sent to China, the National Zoo in Washington announced on Friday. 'No!' chorused a group of seven- and eight-year-olds from Carole Highlands elementary school in suburban Washington on learning the news of Tai Shan's looming departure, which will probably happen early next year. Why did he have to leave? Was he going back to where his parents were from, the largely immigrant group of children asked their teacher Aboussou Dadoua, himself originally from Ivory Coast. 'Maybe it's because we owe China so much money, so they're taking their panda back,' said Desiree Bryce, a mathematics teacher from Hope County Charter School, which was also visiting the zoo. But a few yards away, outside the panda enclosure where Tai Shan sat hunched by a tree stump as he took a morning nap, National Zoo director Steve Monfort told reporters that Tai Shan's return had been on the cards from the day he was born in 2005. Under an agreement between the National Zoo and China, Tai Shan was supposed to have been sent to China in 2007, when he turned two, but the Chinese allowed Washington to keep the panda for two-and-a-half more years. So although Tai Shan's return - or, in reality, his first-ever trip - to China should not have come as a surprise to visitors to Washington's zoo, it did disappoint many of them, not to mention zoo employees. -- AFP
