[News] Chinese pandas arrive at Taipei Zoo
Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan were quickly taken to their new home after
arriving in Taiwan
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2008-12-24 11:37 AM
Upon arrival on Dec. 23, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan get familiar with
their habitat at the Taipei Zoo.
People unload the cage containing Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, two
giant pandas from China, from an EVA Airlines plane onto a truck
before heading to Taipei Zoo in Muzha yesterday.
Giant pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived their new home Taipei
Zoo on Dec. 23. The two began having dinner within half hour of
their arrival.
Giant pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived their new home Taipei
Zoo on Dec. 23. The two began having dinner within half hour of
their arrival.
Central News Agency Two Chinese pandas paced around their new home
at the Taipei Zoo yesterday evening at the close of a high-profile
trip widely considered as a symbol of improving cross-straits
relations.
The endangered animals were promised to then-Kuomintang chairman
Lien Chan during his 2005 landmark visit to China. Earlier this
year, the new KMT government agreed to accept the pandas and
designated Taipei Zoo as their new home.
The four-year-old animals were named Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, from
the Chinese word "tuanyuan," or unity.
The duo left Ya'an in Sichuan Province at 8:15 a.m. as hundreds of
residents bade them farewell. Upon arrival at Chengdu Airport,
song-and-dance performances formed the backdrop for the animals
being lifted aboard a special EVA Air Boeing 747-400.
The plane took off at 2:21 p.m., and landed ahead of schedule at
5:03 p.m. at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Six animal
health inspectors and three vegetable specialists boarded the
aircraft to perform a checkup on the animals and on the Sichuan
bamboo products accompanying them.
The two cages holding the pandas were then loaded onto a
refrigerated truck. All traffic lights on the way were switched to
green so the vehicle could maintain a stable speed. Accompanied by
a police escort, the pandas arrived at the Taipei Zoo just before
7:30 p.m., rounding off an almost 12-hour voyage.
Waiting crowds did not get an opportunity to see the pandas as
there was no welcoming ceremony. The animals were immediately
moved into their new home, a NT$310 million pavilion at Taipei Zoo
where they will spend their first month in quarantine.
Tuan Tuan was the first to pace around the bamboo leaves and tree
trunks strewn around to give the white room a more natural feel.
Yuan Yuan soon joined him to climb on the trees and look at
television camera teams through bars.
The pandas will live under close supervision. Their first meal
will include three types of bamboo from their home region in
China, as well as three varieties of Taiwanese bamboo.
The public is likely to get its first glimpse of the animals late
next month, at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.
Visitors to the panda pavilion are unlikely to include lawmakers
from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, who said they
would boycott the Chinese animals.
"I'm banning my relatives from going to see the pandas, because
one shouldn't use wild animals as presents," DPP legislator Lee
Chun-yee told reporters.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=821006&lang=eng_news
※ 編輯: hisunshine 來自: 118.166.5.251 (12/25 11:01)
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