Giant Panda Zoo Awards 2013: Voting is open!
The voting for the Giant Panda Zoo Awards 2013 opened on December 13, 2013. You will be able to vote for your favorite pandas, people and zoos every day until January 14, 2014.
Let us quickly introduce the nominees in the 10 categories:
Award 1: Panda Cub of the Year
Bao Bao was born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo on August 23. The daughter of Tian Tian & Mei Xiang shares the name of Zoo Berlin’s legend panda Bao Bao, who died last year at the age of 34. Her name means “treasure” or “precious”. Fu Bao is the third son of Long Hui & Yang Yang and was born at Tiergarten Schönbrunn / Zoo Vienna on August 14. The name of Fu Long and Fu Hu’s brother means “happy leopard”. Mei Lun & Mei Huan were born at Zoo Atlanta on July 15, 2013. The fourth and the fifth cub of Yang Yang & Lun Lun are the first surviving panda twins in the United States. Their names originate from a Chinese idiom meaning “something indescribably beautiful and magnificent”. Xing Bao is the third son of Bing Xing and Hua ZuiBa and was born at Zoo Madrid on August 30. The name of Po & De De’s brother means “star treasure”. Yuan Zai is the first daughter of Tuan Tuan & Yuan Yuan and was born on July 6 at the Taipei Zoo. She is the first panda born in Taiwan.
Award 2: Favorite Panda in China
Basi is one of the stars at Fuzhou Panda World. The prototype of the Beijing 1990 Asian Games has an amazing connections with her keepers in Fuzhou. Fu Wa lives at the Ya’an Bi Feng Xia Base of CCRCGP and is almost ready to move to Zoo Negara in Malaysia with Feng Yi. Hao Hao is also waiting to leave her birth country. She returned recently to the Ya’an Bi Feng Xia Base of CCRCGP, after living at the Langzhong Panda Paradise and the Xiangjiang Safari Parc. Hao Hao and Xing Hui are expected to arrive in the Spring of 2014 at Pairi Daiza in Belgium. Jia Jia, the world’s oldest panda, enjoys here old age days at Ocean Park Hong Kong. Mei Qing was the first panda to give birth in China’s Guangdong Province. A new enclsure recently opened for Mei Qing and her cub at the Xiangjiang Safari Parc at Guangzhou’s Chimelong Resort. Meng Meng is one of Beijing Zoo’s most popular pandas. She give birth to her first sons at the Chengdu Panda Base this year. Qi Zai is the giant panda everybody will recognise. The young panda who lives at the Shanxi Rare Wildlife Save & Research Center is brown and white instead of black and white. Xin Xin doesn’t like to gamble. She stays at the Panda Pavillion of the Parque de Seac Pai Van with Kai Kai to spread the panda conservation message in Macau! Supermom Ya Ya has been very famous for giving birth to many panda cubs at the Chengdu Panda Base and even more for living together with a group of young pandas. She is now retired and lives at the Chengdu Zoo. Yong Yong is a young adult panda who proves that captive pandas can be good breeders. He enjoyed the 2012 and 2013 breeding season at the Chengdu Panda Base very much!
Award 3: Favorite ‘Returned’ Panda
A Bao (Po) & De De were born at Zoo Madrid and moved to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in 2013. You can follow them on iPanda. Fu Long won this award in 2012. The male panda born at Tiergarten Schönbrunn / Zoo Vienna moved to the Ya’an Bi Feng Xia Base of CCRCGP in 2009. In the beginning of 2013 he was loaned to the Langzhong Panda Paradise. Hua Mei was the first panda born at the San Diego Zoo. She moved to Wolong in 2004, were she and her last cub are participating in the reintroduction training. Lin Bing (Lin Ping) was Chiang Mai Zoo’s star panda. She even had her own TV-channel for a couple of years! She moved to the Ya’an Bi Feng Xia Base of CCRCGP in 2013 to seek her mate. She is planned to return to Thailand with her mate. Mei Lan was Zoo Atlanta’s first panda cub. He moved to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in 2010. On the same plane that brought him from the U.S.A. to China was Tai Shan, the immensly popular panda born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Xiong Bang (Yu Hin) was the first panda to return to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. He left his birth place Adventure World Wakayama in 2004.
Award 4: Favorite Panda Outside of China
5 females pandas: San Diego Zoo’s Bai Yun, Adelaide Zoo’s Fu Ni, Kobe Oji Zoo’s Tan Tan, Edinburgh Zoo’s Tian Tian and Chapultepec Zoo’s Xin Xin and 5 male pandas: Toronto Zoo’s Da Mao, River Safari’s Kai Kai, Memphis Zoo’s Le Le, Ueno Zoo’s Ri Ri and ZooParc de Beauval’s Yuan Zi were nominated.
Award 5: Panda Personality of the Year: “The Bear”
Lin Bing (Lin Ping) won the ‘Favorite Panda Outside of China’ Award in 2012. Chiang Mai Zoo celebrated her victory with a hughe party, a big golden medal and a visit by Miss World. Lin Bing returned to China in October, but the Thai people are waiting for the return of their star panda with her mate. Lun Lun gave birth to her fourth and fifth cub this year. She is taking care very well for the first surviving panda twins in the U.S.A.. Just like she did for her older sons Mei Lan, Xi Lan and Po. Xiao Liwu was the winner of the 2012 Panda Cub of the Year Award. And he was still stealing the show at the San Diego Zoo in 2013! Yuan Zai is Taiwan’s first panda cub. She is extremly popular in- and outside the Republic of China. Zhang Xiang was released into the wild on November 6. Zhang Ka’s daughter follows in the footsteps of Tao Tao at the Liziping Nature Reserve.
Award 6: Panda Personality of the Year: “The Human”
The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Dr. Copper Aitken-Palmer and the Western University of Health Sciences’ Dr. David Kersey are two American Experts on Giant Panda Reproduction. Dr. Aitken-Palmer on male panda reproduction and Dr. Kersey on the female. Their studies and cooperations with both the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and the China Conservation Centre for the Giant Panda have been very important. They teamed up to work with Lun Lun and Yang Yang at Zoo Atlanta, resulting in the birth of Mei Lun & Mei Huan. Eric Domb created Pairi Daiza in Belgium in 1994. The garden of 55 acres, built at the foot of the ruins of the Cistercian order abbey of Cambron is now Belgium’s number 1 zoo. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, a pair of giant pandas will arrive at Pairi Daiza in the Spring of 2014. How one man’s dream can bring joy to over 1.2 million people every year… Maria Franke is Toronto Zoo’s Curator of Mammals. Maria has been all over Canada’s news since the arrival of their panda pair Er Shun & Da Mao. Being interviewed on tv, on the radio, for the newspapers… The charismatic woman even turned out to be a good sidekick to the Canadian Comedian Rick Mercer. Professor Tang Chunxiang is responsible for the foreign collaborations of the China Conservation Centre for the Giant Panda. You can find him in Ya’an when he’s not travelling around visting foreign zoos. Professor Tang performed the AI on Mei Xiang in 2013, resulting in Bao Bao. Teruaki Hayashi is the CEO of Adventure World Wakayama. The Japanse Institution is the most succesfull panda breeding facility outside of China. With Mei Bang and Yong Bang, he returned Adventure World’s 7th and 8th panda to Chengdu in 2013.
Award 7: Panda Keeper of the Year:
10 Panda Keepers from around the world were nominated: Alejandro Cabrera Montero (Zoo Madrid), Alison Maclean (Edinburgh Zoo), Delphine Pouvreau (ZooParc de Beauval), Deng Tao (Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding), Heather Roberts (Zoo Atlanta), Liu Juan (China Conservation Centre for the Giant Panda), Oscar Pliego (Chapultepec Zoo), Simone Davey (Adelaide Zoo), Suzie Q. Zaledzieski (Memphis Zoo) and Tae Anuwong (Chiang Mai Zoo)
Award 8: Favorite Panda Enclosure:
The panda enclosures of the Adelaide Zoo, Adventure World Wakayama, Chapultepec Zoo, Chiang Mai Zoo, Ocean Park Hong Kong, River Safari, Smithsonian’s National Zoo, Toronto Zoo, Zoo Madrid and ZooParc de Beauval are nominated in this category.
Award 9: Favorite Panda Charity:
Giant Panda Friends International, Ocean Park Conservation Fund, Panda1+1, Pandas International and WWF are nominated in this category.
Award 10: Panda Moment of the Year:
* CCTV launched iPanda
* The FedEx Panda Express brings Er Shun & Da Mao to Canada
* Lun Lun gives birth to the United States’ first surviving panda twins
* Tian Tian was artificially inseminated with sperm from Yang Guang and Bao Bao
* Zhang Xiang’s release in the wild
Click here to start voting!
