Death of panda leaves many questions unanswered
Public shows concern with zoo’s actions and comments, and questions its responsibility, report Yang Yang in Zhengzhou, Hu Yongqi and Wu Wencong in Beijing.
On Valentine’s Day, Longsheng, a giant panda at Zhengzhou Zoo, climbed down from his wooden bed to the window and reached out slowly with his right paw to grasp a red carrot from his feeding tray. He seemed lonely without his female companion, Jinyi, who had died on Feb 9.
Seemingly oblivious to the loss, visitors thronged the zoo as usual to see the panda exhibit. They busily snapped photos and talked loudly with their families and friends. Some even knocked heavily on the glass wall to arouse Longsheng’s attention. He seemed not to notice as he slowly nibbled his carrot.
Keepers had sanitized the enclosure from top to bottom after Jinyi’s death from what zoo officials reported as “heart and lung failure”, and the lingering odor of disinfectant still pervaded the panda house.
The cause of Jinyi’s death is under investigation. A panda is normally expected to live up to 25 years, and Jinyi was only 7, a panda adolescent.
Questions have been raised whether management practices at the zoo contributed to her death. Scrutiny intensified when the zoo gave contradictory accounts to explain why Jinyi was not in the compound.
A final report will be issued in 10 to 15 days after the Veterinary Institute of Academy of Military Medical Sciences further examines tissue and fluid samples from Jinyi’s body.
Differing stories
Born in 2007 in Wolong, Jinyi was one of the stars in celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Preliminary diagnoses showed she died of acute gastroenteritis that led to heavy bleeding and severe shock. She might have been infected by parvovirus, a virus that can infect dogs and other animals, experts said.
When zoo visitors found Jinyi missing, they asked what happened to her. She was already dead, but Li Chaojun, head of the department of animal management at the zoo, said the panda had been sent back to Wolong for mating, which usually takes place in April. Later, on Feb 13, the zoo admitted at a news conference that Jinyi had died.
That sparked a hurricane of questions. People wanted to know why the zoo had lied and what it had been trying to hide.
“It is my fault,” department head Li said of the false explanation. “I did not know what to say if people asked me what the cause of the death was. So I said she went back to Wolong for mating. We had nothing to hide.”
The different explanations mystified Qiu Yu of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province, where Jinyi was originally raised. Qiu said the center was unaware of the zoo’s first explanation, and he didn’t know why the zoo would have made such a statement.
Suspicions arose that the zoo might have wanted to conceal the news from the public to mask what could turn out to be its own failure to provide proper care for the pandas.
Li Caiwu, a veterinarian at the center with Qiu, was sent to help save the sick panda. But he said Jinyi died before his flight on Feb 9. Until then, the center had been providing assistance by telephone.
“Our center sends veterinarians to all zoos that rent our pandas every six months to conduct normal health checks. The latest check in December showed nothing wrong with Jinyi,” he said, adding that a zoo’s veterinarians can often heal animals without having to consult the center if the trouble is relatively minor.
Qiu said to better protect giant pandas, zoos from every provincial capital in China usually have at least two to show. Most come from three research centers: Qiu’s organization, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, and the Qinling Giant Panda Breeding Base in Shaanxi province.
The State Forestry Administration has the final say over which center sends pandas to local zoos, Qiu said. A number of requirements have to be met before a zoo is qualified to rent the animals — the proper condition of the house, the qualifications of the veterinarians and the quality of the food.
“Our center usually sends at least one breeder with the pandas to stay with them at the zoo to coach the local staff how to breed and manage the animals’ daily life,” Qiu said, adding that the center cannot take full responsibility of the breeding because “one breeder certainly cannot take care of two pandas at the same time.”
Qiu said it is normal for pandas to fall sick or die from time to time. It’s not necessarily the result of abuse, as some netizens may think, even though China now has more than 300 captive-bred pandas. “No one dares to abuse pandas, nor will our curator allow that to happen,” Qiu said.
The panda house at the Zhengzhou Zoo is generally cleaned on a daily basis, but each panda can excrete more than 10 kilograms of waste every day, so it is possible that some visitors will see excrement in the house. But he added that rather than giving off a bad odor, panda waste typically smells like bamboo, the animals’ primary diet, though they are also fed a supplemental food mixture.
Given that pandas themselves don’t stink, the odor visitors complained about would likely not be coming from the panda house.
“The bread-like foodstuff is a supplemental food for pandas,” said Qiu. “Made from rice, soybeans, eggs, carrots and flour, the feed helps captive-bred pandas stay healthier than those that live in the wild, and it’s more expensive than bamboo.”
Sanitation crucial
Xiong Liangbo, the Zhengzhou Zoo’s panda keeper, was sent to the zoo by the conservation center in July to baby-sit two pandas, Jinyi and Wenyu, which had been leased annually for 250,000 yuan ($42,000) each. The pair arrived at the zoo in May 2011. Wenyu was returned to Sichuan for mating, and another male, Longsheng, replaced him.
Xiong complained about what he characterized as a poor living environment for pandas at the zoo. Only a wire net separated Jinyi from the monkey house, and some gibbons also made too much noise, Xiong said. The zoo’s authorities said a new panda house is being built so that pandas will not be grouped with other animals.
Xiong said the quality of bamboo the zoo provided to feed the pandas could not be ascertained. He said that several days ago he was looking around the zoo for bamboo that had not been contaminated by pesticides because he had been told that bamboo could not be sent to the zoo because of heavy snow. But he said that even though he is the keeper of the pandas, he has no say about their food supply.
“Bamboo is the main food for giant pandas,” Xiong said. “For more nourishment, we also give them concentrated feed, but without enough bamboo, pandas cannot digest this feed properly and they excrete it directly.”
According to Li Chaojun, the animal management department head, the zoo was transporting fresh bamboo every day from Xinyang, more than 300 kilometers south of Zhengzhou. Li said that one panda consumes 40 kg of bamboo daily, in addition to 1.5 kg of fresh fruits and vegetables — apples, carrots, bamboo shoots — and 1 kg of concentrated feed, a cake made of a mixed powder of minced meat and ground beans.
Xiong said Jinyi’s weight dropped 20 kg by the time she died at the Zhengzhou Zoo, a significant proportion for an animal that originally weighed 90 kg. But Li insisted that Jinyi had not been abused. Zoo personnel “tried their best to guarantee the interest of pandas”, Li said.
Other panda keepers say that food and sanitation are major factors in keeping pandas healthy. “The foodstuff is just supplemental on a panda’s menu. The main course must be clean, fresh bamboo,” said senior keeper Feng Guilin at Yunnan Wildlife Park, where two giant pandas have been kept for about six years in suburban Kunming, Yunnan province. One panda can be fed with at most 2.5 kg of foodstuff, while it has to eat at least 40 kg of good bamboo, Feng said.
Generally, young pandas are vulnerable to intestinal diseases, and older ones don’t do well in hot weather. Pandas generally are more susceptible to ailments in the rainy season and in hot weather, such as the past unexpectedly warm winter in China, Feng said.
The park’s panda house is located in a mountain valley to avoid high temperatures in the dry season. It provides a playground of 400 square meters and two specially designed wooden beds for the animals. Bamboo is provided each night as a snack.
Kunming, dubbed “Spring City” by many Chinese, has a perfect climate for the pandas, Feng said. The park purchases fresh bamboo from local farmers or from neighboring cities in Sichuan to make sure the quality is high.
Each morning, Feng and his colleagues spend at least three hours cleaning the panda house. “We have to pick up all the bamboo leftovers on the ground and on the bed. All the waste must be taken out of the house and burned to ensure that any parasites won’t survive. In addition, keepers are required to check the animals’ excrement to detect any change in color or smell,” Feng said.
Parasites can cause pandas to vomit. “If that occurs, the veterinarian must take urgent measures,” Feng said. The presence of parasites could indicate that keepers failed to keep the pandas’ biggest enemy at bay, he said.
Veterinarian Li Caiwu said that tissue and fluid samples from Jinyi, the dead female panda, have been sent to a research center in northeast China’s Jilin province for testing. The results of those tests will be needed before experts can determine with certainty what caused her death.