Giant pandas are the most cute and cute animals in the world, and there is no one! It is the bearer of the cute pet world, and almost no one can resist its unique charm. It has round cheeks, large dark circles, chubby body, and a cute and loving look, even if the most cold people see the giant panda, their hearts will be warmed by its cuteness.
The giant panda is a unique species in China, it has survived on the earth for at least 8 million years, is known as "living fossil" and "Chinese national treasure", is the image ambassador of the World Wide Fund for Nature, and is also the flagship species of the world biodiversity conservation.
However, such a cute cute thing was hunted, hunted and auctioned for decades by the so-called civilized people in the West.
Chinese has a long history of understanding pandas, and various titles for pandas have been recorded as early as the early days of writing. The Book of Books is called 貔, the Mao Shi is called Bai Xi (pi), the Emei Shan Zhi is called 貔貅, the Beast Classic is called 貉, Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" is called 貘, and so on.
But Westerners do not know that such a living treasure exists. Until March 1869, the French naturalist Father Armand Davide, during a scientific expedition in Baoxing County, Ya'an, Sichuan, China, discovered a strange animal known locally as the white bear and the flower bear. With the help of local hunters, he collected specimens of white bears and transported them and bones to the National Museum of France for display. Since then, the giant pandas living in the wilderness have entered the vision of human civilization.
The discovery of giant pandas caused a huge sensation in the Western world. Since then, waves of Western explorers, nomads and museum specimen collectors have come to giant panda production areas in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of giant pandas and hunt this rare animal. These include Two sons of President Roosevelt of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt.
In 1928, without anyone's consent, the two brothers ran to Baoxing County, where David found giant pandas, to prepare to hunt down giant pandas. As a result, no trace of the giant panda was found, but 14 golden snub-nosed monkeys were killed. Later, they entered Daliangshan, and in Yuexi County, they shot and killed a giant panda, made a specimen and brought it back to the United States, which is still preserved in the History Museum of Chicago.
Why are Westerners free to enter China to hunt giant pandas? Because it was the republic of China period, China was poor and weak, and Westerners believed that people all over the world had become accustomed to robbing China's things.
The deeds of Roosevelt's two sons were widely publicized by the American media, and for a time, the hunting competition for giant pandas was launched in Western countries. Since then, explorers from Germany, Britain and other countries have hunted giant pandas, and more have been acquired from Chinese hunters. In this way, soon many museums in Western countries have specimens of giant pandas.
But they never caught a live panda. It wasn't until 1936 that New York female fashion designer Ruth Harkless, in order to fulfill her avid explorer husband's last wishes, teamed up to go to China in search of giant pandas. On November 9, 1936, when they finally captured a live panda cub weighing less than 3 pounds, Ruth was so surprised that she immediately named the cub "Su Lin", and then immediately flew to Shanghai, fooled through customs in the name of the pug she carried with her, and took Su Lin to the Cruise Ship to the United States.
Ruth was still sailing in the Pacific Ocean with live pandas, and the transoceanic telegraph had already spread the news throughout the United States. As the San Francisco dock docks docked, thousands of Americans held a grand welcome ceremony on the pier, and they arranged the most luxurious suite for their precious guest, Su Lin, for a grand welcome party.
Since then, Su Lin has been sent to many big cities for exhibition, and everywhere she goes, it has caused a sensation. When Roosevelt's son, Theodore, saw Su Lin, he said very emotionally, "If this little guy is a souvenir of my gun, I would rather use my son instead." ”
In 1937, Su Lin was photographed at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Then, people flocked here like a tide, up to 40,000 people a day; in 6 months, more than 300,000 people came to see her, including Roosevelt, Helen Keller and other celebrities. Su Lin became a superstar in the United States, and her every move became the headline of the newspaper. Merchants scrambled to make products for the giant panda image. Fashionable girls dressed in panda-patterned swimsuits flaunted the market. Even one cocktail is named after the giant panda. Ruth and Su lin's story became a bestseller and was brought to the screen.
Unfortunately, Su Lin only lived for one year and was made into specimens for permanent display. But since then, live pandas have become super favorite animal stars in Western countries, and raising giant pandas has also become a fashion in Western high society. Driven by financial gain, many Westerners have come to China to capture and buy live pandas, and then transport them back to Western countries for high-priced auctions.
According to records, from 1936 to 1941, the United States alone took away 9 giant pandas from China. In the three years from 1936 to 1938, the Englishman Tangier Smith acquired a total of 9 live pandas and brought 6 of them to the United Kingdom. However, the survival rate of giant pandas after being arrested is very low, and many national treasures have died on the way to transportation.
In December 1945, after the end of World War II, the British organized a team of more than 200 people through diplomatic channels to go to Wenchuan to carry out a large-scale search for pandas. It is precisely because western countries are so frantic about hunting that the number of giant pandas in nature has decreased sharply and is on the verge of extinction. At that time, the Nationalist government began to realize the seriousness of the problem and took measures to restrict the hunting activities of foreigners.
After the founding of New China, giant pandas received attention and key protection in China, and the Chinese government explicitly banned the auction of giant pandas. In 1963, the Sichuan Wolong National Nature Reserve was officially established, and through a series of conservation measures, the giant panda avoided the consequences of extinction, and then the number began to stabilize and gradually increase.
Because giant pandas are very popular abroad, after the founding of New China, giant pandas also played the role of diplomatic "goodwill ambassadors". In 1957, the panda "Pingping" was first given to the Soviet Union as a national gift, and in the following 26 years, China gave a total of 23 pandas from 9 countries to show friendly exchanges.
In 1982, the Chinese government announced that in order to better protect the giant pandas, it decided not to give away the giant pandas to the outside world, but to "rent" them. The terms of the lease are also very "harsh", mainly to better protect the "national treasure".
Let's take a look at the "harsh conditions" for renting pandas:
1. Each giant panda needs to pay 500,000-1 million US dollars in rent to China every year;
2. Before leasing giant pandas, it is necessary to formulate a research plan that can benefit wild pandas, and also assist In obtaining funds for China's panda conservation projects;
3. Want to borrow giant pandas to prove their breeding ability first;
4. For each cub given birth to a giant panda, the lender must pay the Chinese side 600,000 US dollars, and must return to China after the age of 3;
5. If a leased giant panda dies unnaturally, it must pay $500,000 in compensation.
It is precisely because the conditions of panda leasing are so "harsh", the leased countries and organizations have cherished and protected the "rented" treasures even more. In order to pass the "leasing" audit, many countries can be said to be racking their brains and doing their best.
For example, in the Netherlands, in order to be able to rent giant pandas, they prepared for 16 years, after three prime ministers, more than 20 trips to Andromo China, before reaching this panda lease contract. They spent 51 million yuan to build a panda pavilion of about 9,000 square meters for the two baby pandas "Xingya" and "Wuwen", in order to adapt the two baby pandas to the new environment, the construction of the panda pavilion is made in China, and all building materials are imported from China.
When "Xingya" and "Wu Wen" landed in the Netherlands on a special plane with their own heads printed on them, the Dutch side sent a high-level delegation to greet them, and dozens of police cars on the way to the Panda Pavilion opened the road to escort them, which was no less than the leader of a country to visit.
As China's softest diplomat, the giant panda plays an important role as a "goodwill ambassador" and plays a positive role in promoting the development of friendship between China and other countries in the world. Happily, after decades of protection, in 2016, the giant panda changed from an endangered species to a vulnerable species, and the history of the tragic killing of giant pandas will become forever.
Guangzai comments: I did not expect that the two sons of the famous former US President Roosevelt were the first to set a precedent for Westerners to hunt Chinese giant pandas. These Westerners, who claim to be cloaked in the cloak of gentlemen, have had such an ugly and unbearable history for the sake of personal fanfare and for the sake of monetary gain. Facts have proved that in the face of interests, the so-called value systems of civilization, environmental protection, and democracy in the West are hypocritical. The essence of their "freedom" is that the dominant strong can do whatever they want to kill the weak at their disposal.
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