CCTV with Xiong Bang & Visiting Chengdu City
This morning I went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding with the enthusiastic French Pambassador candidate, David Algranti. We were told that CCTV would interview us there. When we arrived at the Panda Base, they brought us to the No. 2 Enclosure. In this building live 6 giant pandas. Mei Lan (born at Zoo Atlanta), Xiong Bang (born at Adventure World Shirahama, Japanese name = Yu Hin), Qiu Bang (born at Adventure World Shirahama, Japanese name = Shu Hin), Gong Zi & the 2 pandas who will move to Macau in december. When we entered the building I saw a panda, Gong ZI, in his sleeping room. I couldn’t wait and went inside. At that moment another panda, Xiong Bang, entered his sleeping cage. When Xiong Bang was born on December 17, 2001 at Adventure World Shirahama, it was very big news because he was the first panda in captivity born outside of the normal birthing season (July – October) for giant pandas. I followed his story on the website of Adventure World (where they called him Yu Hin) from the day he was born, and now I was standing next to him. He became such a big strong male panda. I was so happy when I saw him at our tour through the Chengdu Panda Base, but this was even more breathtaking. The Japanese Pambassador candidate Yumiko (one of my favorites for the final 6!), was crying when we saw the Japanese born Pandas Xiong Bang & Qiu Bang some days ago, showing how important these pandas were for her and for the Japanese and international public. I was thinking about panda mother Mei Mei, who died on October 15, 2008 after giving birth to 11 panda cubs… And now, David and I were standing next to the first cub of Mei Mei & Yong Ming (Japanese name = Ei Mei). At that time they told us, we were not going to have a regular interview. CCTV would broadcast us live while we would be working as panda keepers with Xiong Bang… We had to get Xiong Bang to move from his sleeping cage to the inside enclosure… This was so great! After this we got to feed Bamboo and apples to him! This was so amazing! We he had eaten everything, he went outside. We also had to answer two questions about this amazing event.
When we were finished we walked around the No. 2 Enclosure. Mei Lan & Qiu Bang were sleeping outside, Xiong Bang was walking at the back of his enclosure, but the 2 Macau pandas were still awake. We stayed at the exhibit of Qi Miao & Shu Xiang (who will receive new names in Macau, Sam Sam & Hoi Hoi) for a while and later we went to the red panda exhibit, before leaving the Panda Base.
In the afternoon, we went to the city of Chengdu with our host families to talk about the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and about panda conservation to the citizens and tourists.
I can’t wait for the great panda activities of tomorrow…. Grtz Pambassador Jeroen Jacobs
