U.S. zoos go panda-crazy because of crowd-drawing appeal

The red tape and big money needed to land the popular panda bears has not stopped various U.S. zoos from trying to obtain the animals for their displays

Quest to win creature from China is costly in time and money

June 2, 2000
Web posted at: 9:43 p.m. EDT (0143 GMT)

From Correspondent Rusty Dornin

OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Because no zoo exhibit can draw a crowd quite like a giant panda, many U.S. zoos are eager to add a pair of the creatures to their exhibits.

But with somewhere between 700 and 1,000 of the pandas left in the wild in China, getting one is no easy feat for a zoo.

That has not stopped U.S. zoos in Washington, Memphis, Oakland and elsewhere from diving into red tape and coming up with the deep pockets needed to obtain the Asian mammal that people find so irresistible.

When Zoo Atlanta decided it had to have one, officials faced a daunting amount of paperwork.

"It took us 12 years from the beginning point of the project to actually having pandas here in Atlanta," said Gail Eaton of efforts by the zoo in Georgia.

Giant pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang arrived in Atlanta last November from China, the only country where the animals exist in nature.

Along with the pandas, the Atlanta zoo also got a bill from China of $1 million per panda per year, for conservation efforts in the pandas' homeland. The money goes to help save and nurture bamboo corridors, conduct research on panda behavior and create environments conducive to successful breeding.

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The U.S. companies that helped bankroll the visit hope the bamboo-eaters will be a bonanza for business. And so far they are.

Tickets to the exhibit, where the mostly white bears with black limbs, ears and eye patches play, eat and nap, are often sold out by mid-day. But the bewitching creatures can also be viewed on the Internet through the zoo's Panda Cam.

That expensive, bureaucratic and sometimes nightmarish process, is one that a number of zoos can't wait to begin.

"We have 500 acres here at the Oakland Zoo, so we have a green belt they can access," said Joel Parrott. The California zoo passed the first hurdle of the panda acquisition process when facility officials traveled to China recently and signed a $20 million, non-binding agreement for a pair of pandas.

Because the animals are an endangered species, zoos must first obtain permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

To get that permit, zoos must prove the pandas will not simply be on display, but also will be a part of ongoing conservation, research, and sometimes, breeding programs.

At the San Diego zoo, one of two U.S. zoos that have pandas, research focuses on how the pandas recognize each other through smell.

The hope is to gain more information about pandas in the wild. In China, poaching and human encroachment on the animals habitat is taking its toll on the number of pandas.

The U.S. government demands that zoos make sure the money sent to the Chinese goes toward saving the species.

"Our policy requires that they actually identify specific projects -- be it a refuge, maybe anti-poaching research on the ground in China -- activities that would directly relate to the conservation of pandas," said Kenneth Stansell of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

It's big time and big money to win the international agreement for the crowd-pleasing creatures. But zoos such as the one in Oakland hope their visitors will soon be seeing a panda exhibit in black and white.

Preparing for panda-monium
April 17, 2000
Rare pandas are giant hit in Hong Kong
May 17, 1999
For pandas, familiarity breeds contempt, not cubs
February 19, 1999
Pandas making the move to Hong Kong
January 10, 1999

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