CHINA: Two pandas - a gift from China - arrive in Hong Kong after one month's quarantine

Record ID: 872848

  • Title: CHINA: Two pandas - a gift from China - arrive in Hong Kong after one month's quarantine
  • Date: 27th April 2007
  • Summary: (L!3) HONG KONG, CHINA (APRIL 24, 2007) (REUTERS) ZHANG HEMIN, DIRECTOR OF WOLONG NATURE RESERVE ADMINISTRATION SPEAKING TO REPORTERS SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) ZHANG HEMIN, DIRECTOR OF WOLONG NATURE RESERVE ADMINISTRATION SAYING: "These two pandas are very young, I think they have very strong adaptability. They should be able to adapt to the Hong Kong weather in a short period of time.
  • Embargoed: 12th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • City:
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Nature / Environment,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAA9K0PZU3YQXLW3VIOQBVDX3YR
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  • Story Text: The panda pair were greeted by locals and media on Thursday (April 26) when they finally arrived on Hong Kong soil. The arrival marked the deliver of a gift mainland China to mark the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule.
    Their long-awaited trip came to an end as the two furry creatures set foot in their new home to embark on their new lives.
    The pair was selected from 15 candidates after rigourous physical examinations on their weight, height, teeth, heart rate, breath, body temperature, blood and organs.
    Both pandas were born in August 2005 at the China Panda Protection and Research Centre in Wolong, in mountainous Sichuan province.
    Nameless before arrival, they were christened Le Le and Ying Ying at a ceremony at Hong Kong's international airport.
    The Chinese names mean "happiness" and "abundance", respectively, and were chosen from some 13,000 public submissions.
    The endangered pair's half-day journey from the bamboo-forested mountains of south-western China, began by truck under police escort, then on by airplane to Hong Kong.
    To ensure the pandas suffer no culture clash in the former British colony, they reportedly underwent "rigourous" tutoring by their keepers in Cantonese and English phrases like "good boy".
    They're not the first of their kind to be given to Hong Kong as a gift. China presented the first pair of pandas, "An An", 28, and "Jia Jia,", 29, to Hong Kong in 1999.
    A "bamboo" farm in southern China has been enlarged to provide the extra bamboo now needed per week -- around 500kg -- for the four.
    "These two pandas are very young, I think they have very strong adaptability. They should be able to adapt to the Hong Kong weather in a short period of time." said Zhang Hemin, Director of Wolong Nature Reserve Administration.
    Le Le and Ying Ying will be quarantined in Ocean Park for around a month before being officially unveiled to the public ahead of Hong Kong's 10th anniversary under Chinese rule on July 1st.
    The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China. An estimated 1,000 live in south-western Sichuan and in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces in the northwest.
    Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to rule under China on July 1, 1997.
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