I think that for weeks or even months, I believe that every netizen has been flooded by countless "panda" information.
Regarding the matter of the giant pandas "Lele" and "Yaya" in the United States, I believe that there is no need to say more about military martial arts. Many netizens not only demanded to take back "Yaya" in advance, but also demanded to recover pandas in the United States and even the world. But at this moment on the cusp of the storm, Jun Wu Mushroom saw such a news:
▲The news is unconfirmed, please look at it dialectically
Not only will you not pick up the pandas in advance, but you will continue to send pandas to the United States? Seeing this news, I believe that the first reaction of many netizens was surprisingly angry and puzzled, and some even pointed the finger at the relevant domestic units and organizations responsible, opposing the continued lease of pandas to the United States.
However, I am afraid that things are not so simple.
Did the Memphis Zoo abuse pandas?
On February 1, local time, the giant panda "Lele" raised at the Memphis Zoo in the United States was found to have died, and the news immediately exploded the Internet. Countless netizens denounced the abuse of pandas in the United States and Memphis Zoo, and demanded that another panda "Yaya" be brought back to China in advance.
So far, all these views and appeals are completely reasonable. However, in the context of Sino-US relations and the popularity of Panda's own, some speculators began to surface, maliciously exaggerating and fabricating facts for the sake of traffic. And this false information is mixed in with the real situation, and it is difficult to distinguish.
First of all, it is an indisputable fact that the giant pandas "Lele" and "Yaya" raised at the Memphis Zoo look very bad.
As early as around 2019, some American netizens and media pointed out that the two giant pandas raised at the Memphis Zoo did not seem to be in good condition. In response to these remarks, the Memphis Zoo initially took a dead-playing attitude and ignored them at all. However, due to the increasing number of people denouncing the zoo and the increasing influence, in 2021, the Memphis Zoo finally issued an article claiming that "Lele" and "Yaya" are in good condition and there is no problem, and a set of photos shows the current situation of the two pandas.
As a result, after this photo was sent, netizens were more anxious: Have you never seen a panda in your zoo? Can this state also be applauded? There are also growing voices against the Memphis Zoo. For these criticisms, the Memphis zoo either plays dead or simply repeats the previous response. It was not until the end of 2022 that it was announced that "Lele" and "Yaya" would be sent back to China, and these criticisms gradually subsided.
▲ American netizens regard this as a "victory"
But unfortunately, Lele fell in the moment before returning home
But "Lele" did not wait for this day in the end.
According to the Memphis Zoo, "Lele" and "Yaya" are too old, "Lele" has dental problems, and "Yaya" has inherited skin diseases, and his health has been poor. These claims may be true, but they do not fully explain the panda's poor condition. Since the Memphis Zoo knows that the pandas raised are old and have health problems, of course, they should be more carefully cared for and raised, and should be more transparent and open in the face of doubts, rather than choosing to pretend to be dead to avoid doubts, or prevaricate with clichés.
Judging from public information such as live broadcasts and videos, the two pandas at Memphis Zoo must have problems. Netizens are not animal experts, and can only judge the health of pandas based on their limited cognition. But what the Memphis Zoo says is all empty clichés, how to raise pandas, how much staple food and complementary food are given, what are the sources of food, how to provide rich conditions, etc., how can this not be questioned?
▲ American non-governmental organizations have been denouncing the Memphis Zoo
From this point of view, the Memphis Zoo did not care about raising our national treasures at all, but only used pandas as a tool to make money, and did not care about the accusations of public opinion and the bad state of pandas. It can be seen that they do not pay attention to panda roots. Although the Memphis Zoo's investment in the panda house is not small, and the area is quite large, if the keeper cannot take care of the panda as his own treasure, it does not make any sense.
▲ Foreign media exposed, other animals in Memphis Zoo are not in good condition
But if the Memphis Zoo is deliberately abusing the pandas, it's unlikely.
First, animal cruelty is a serious crime in the United States. In November 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump officially signed the Convention on the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which recognizes animal cruelty as a serious criminal offense that violates federal law, and violators can be sentenced to more than 7 years in prison. In addition to federal law, many states in the United States also have laws prohibiting animal cruelty.
▲ Dare to abuse the panda, without us taking action, they will be killed by Trump's "big commander"
Generally speaking, the American police attach great importance to and will strictly investigate cases of animal cruelty, even hamsters and geckos cannot be abused, let alone pandas. The Memphis Zoo has been sprayed by people in China and the United States for so many years, and the phone of the local police department must have been burst long ago. Give them a hundred guts, and the staff of the Memphis Zoo do not dare to deliberately abuse the panda on public display.
▲ It is absolutely appropriate to pay attention to our national treasure
But it must not be used to spread rumors and conspiracy theories
But on this basis, some unscrupulous marketing accounts have found opportunities to create conspiracy theories and defraud traffic. They eat panda blood steamed buns and deliberately fabricate baseless anti-intellectual conspiracy theories and rumors. For example, rumors that pandas were arrested in the United States for "electrocution", and even some people said that the United States would extract panda genes for experiments, which has no logic. Is the United States going to use the panda gene to develop biological weapons and kill enemies on the battlefield?
Whether the Memphis Zoo mistreated our national treasure is highly controversial until now. Jun Wu Mu believes that the Memphis Zoo may not be subjectively abusing pandas, but it is definitely not seriously raising pandas and not caring for our national treasures. And Lele and Yaya are about to return to China, but the Memphis Zoo did not take measures such as adding meals and gaining weight to the two pandas that were about to be transported long distances, indicating that they did not seriously raise these two pandas that had not made money.
What about pandas in other zoos?
In addition to the Memphis Zoo, there are two other zoos in the United States that are keeping pandas, one of which is the Smithsonning National Zoo we mentioned at the beginning, also known as the Washington Zoo.
▲Washington Zoo's Internet celebrity "Little Miracle"
At present, the Washington Zoo has a panda family of three: "Mei Xiang", "Tim Tian" and the youngest baby panda "Little Miracle". According to the original plan, in 2020, Mei Xiang and Tim Tian will end their loan and return to China. However, Mei Xiang was found pregnant during this period, and could only renew the period for 3 years, waiting for the panda cub to become an adult. In the same year, Mei Xiang successfully gave birth to a baby panda, also known as "Little Miracle".
▲ Little Miracle is the most popular panda in the United States
From this point of view, the news spread on the Internet seems to be very true, Mei Xiang and Tim Tian returned to China normally this year as planned, allowing Little Miracle to stay in the United States, and the 2-year-old female panda "Dou Companion" may be to pair with Little Miracle of similar age, everything seems to make sense.
▲ "Bean Companion" is the niece of "Little Miracle", which is almost impossible to use for breeding
But the problem is that the mother of "Bean Companion", the female giant panda "baby", is precisely one of the pandas born by Mei Xiang and Tim in Washington Zoo in 2013, and is the eldest sister of Little Miracle! The original name of Bean Partner "Donton" is also in honor of the Washington Zoo! Although Little Miracle is the same age as Bean, he is an uncle and nephew. If it were not for the extreme lack of pandas, the mainland would never have allowed pandas to breed in-breeding!
Moreover, 2-year-old pandas are definitely not suitable for breeding, and at least they should start breeding programs after 4-5 years old. Before that, we had hardly sent pandas of such a young age abroad. Therefore, Jun Wu Mushi believes that this rumor may not be true, and everyone should wait for the final official announcement.
▲ "Tim Tian" raised at Washington Zoo
In fact, a few years ago, the way pandas were raised at the Washington Zoo were also criticized, and around 2020, there were calls to bring the giant pandas back to China in advance at the Washington Zoo. To some extent, some of these claims are true. For example, Mei Xiang has obvious stereotypical behavior, and the staff of the Washington Zoo are not particularly attentive to pandas, which is basically an extensive way of breeding.
▲"Meixiang" raised at Washington Zoo
Overall, the pandas at the Washington Zoo are not very good, but they are not bad, and they are basically decent. Compared with the Memphis Zoo, and even many zoos in China, the Washington Zoo's breeding of pandas is definitely much better. Many of the "criticisms" of the Washington Zoo on the Internet are actually completely fabricated by people who do not know pandas and even maliciously create panic marketing numbers.
As the most well-known Internet celebrity panda in the United States, "Little Miracle" is in quite healthy condition. Although Mei Xiang and Tim Tian can't say how healthy they are, the problems that arise are also common in captive pandas. Jun Wu Mu believes that if the mainland decides to renew its contract with the Washington Zoo and continue to provide pandas, there is actually no problem.
▲ Zoo Atlanta's heroic mother "Lunlun"
In addition, the Atlanta Zoo in the United States also has pandas. Compared with the Washington Zoo, the two pandas in Zoo Atlanta: Lun Lun and Yangyang are in better condition, Lun Lun has successfully bred 5 children, two of which are twins, and all 7 children survived. It can be said that I am quite lucky.
▲ Calgary Zoo's "Ershun" and "Big Mao"
In many zoos in other countries, pandas are also regarded as the "treasure of the town hall", and they are afraid to melt in the palm of their hands. In 2018, the Calgary Zoo in Canada introduced two giant pandas, "Ershun" and "Da Mao". How much does the Calgary Zoo pet these two pandas? All the bamboo eaten by the panda was flown in from China! It can be seen that the zoo is bloody.
Unfortunately, with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Calgary Zoo was unable to buy fresh bamboo from China. The zoo tried feeding with bamboo from other sources and found that these two spoiled big babies didn't eat them at all! In desperation, the Calgary Zoo could only end the contract early and urgently send "Ershun" and "Da Mao" back to China.
At present, there are more than 70 giant pandas living abroad, most of which have been well cared for, and military mushrooms are by no means enumerated. The Memphis Zoo in the United States must have serious problems in the breeding of giant pandas, and military mushrooms are absolutely opposed to the mainland continuing to cooperate with Memphis to breed giant pandas in the future. But for other zoos in the United States, and even zoos in other countries, it should not be killed with a stick.
Pandas are not suitable for keeping in zoos
Seeing this, some people will definitely question military mushrooms: the American zoo caught giant pandas for anesthesia, electric shocks for experiments, put pandas in small cages, and pandas had such miserable lives, these are all real things! You actually say that these are normal, isn't this washing the floor for the Americans?
In this regard, what Junwu Mushroom wants to say is: if we are an unscrupulous marketing number who is unscrupulous and has no conscience for the sake of traffic, we can follow these remarks and criticize how evil American zoos are and how to persecute our national treasures. And when I say these words, someone will definitely scold me. But this is not the truth of the matter, or, not the whole truth.
▲ "Yaya" once showed serious stereotypical behavior, which is heart-wrenching
Let's start with a conclusion: zoos are prisons for animals.
Junwu mushroom is a person who likes small animals very much, and there are not hundreds of animals that have been raised. I believe many people have raised hamsters at one time, right? This kind of small animal is very cheap, you can buy a pair for a few dollars on the stall, and even give a cage, it must be very easy to keep, right? Junwu Mushroom has seen people keep hamsters in palm-sized cages and even drink bottles, and they seem to be doing well.
▲ Hamsters are so small, they must be very good to keep, right?
But in reality, for hamsters, this is outright abuse.
Hamster is a very active, extremely active, extremely active animal, want to raise a small hamster of about 5 cm healthy, at least 60-80 cm long vibratorium, enough for hamsters to dig burrows in the litter, rich toys, teething materials, staple foods and complementary foods and so on. If you keep a large Syrian hamster, even a one- or two-meter-long terrarium is not too large, and only one can be kept. Otherwise, hamsters will have various physiological problems and even mental problems due to lack of activity, lack of teething items, and lack of abundant food.
▲Do your hamsters have such good conditions?
A hamster with a large palm needs such a huge space, what about the panda?
Even the largest and most luxurious Qatar Zoo Panda Pavilion, which covers an area of 120,000 square meters, can leave less than a fraction of the panda's wild territory, not to mention that most zoos only have tens of square meters of cages. In such an environment, no matter how thoughtful the zoo takes care of the panda, it will also cause irreversible permanent mental damage to the panda, resulting in serious stereotypical behaviors of the panda, such as walking back and forth in one place, nibbling on objects, and even hitting the ground with their heads.
▲The conditions of Qatar Zoo are almost no other zoo can compare
Under the current conditions, the stereotypical behavior of giant pandas in captivity is almost unavoidable and untreatable, and can only be carefully cared for and guided by keepers to mitigate the impact of stereotyped behavior. For zoos with many pandas, only those healthy pandas will be taken out for display, and the pandas with serious health problems that are difficult to treat, and people who can't bear to look at them are sent to the breeding area that is not publicly displayed and "hidden".
▲ What kind of clever came up with letting snakes bite pandas?
Not to mention the panda, your cat owner can shoot the snake to death
On the other hand, it is also true that American zoos have long "anesthetized", "shocked" and "experimented" giant pandas, but the problem is that this was originally part of the giant panda rental contract.
At present, there are still difficulties in the breeding of captive giant pandas, and many giant pandas "don't look at each other" or female and male pandas are inexperienced, which may lead to the failure of natural reproduction of giant pandas. Zoo Atlanta's "Lunlun" once beat him up because of his "foreign" technology. For successful breeding, artificial insemination is necessary.
▲The scene of domestic violence
Giant pandas are not docile and well-behaved babies, but real beasts. Whether it is collecting sperm from male pandas or artificially inseminating female pandas, it is necessary to anesthetize the panda, otherwise the panda will come up with a set of TM bear power. I don't know if there are any veterinary friends in the comment area, in general, the main way to sperm animals is the same: electric shock.
Many giant pandas are over 20 years old, equivalent to human 80s or even 90s, and they have to undergo this electric shock and anesthesia operation to continue artificial insemination and breeding. Long-term electric shock and anesthesia on giant pandas is likely to affect the health of pandas, and may even lead to panda death. In practice, there have indeed been some relevant cases.
In fact, these incidents are by no means limited to giant pandas, except for a few zoos, the living conditions of animals in many zoos and oceanariums at home and abroad are very tragic. For large wild animals and beasts, such problems are even more serious and simply cannot be solved. After all, the main purpose of the zoo is to watch, you give a panda a piece of tens of millions of square meters of activity range, everyone can't even see a panda hair, what zoo to open?
▲The bay crocodile "Little River" donated by Taiwan to a zoo in the mainland
Living in a dirty environment for a long time, the state is worrying
In order to protect giant pandas more effectively, the mainland has established a number of panda breeding research bases, including Wolong Shenshuping Base, Dujiangyan Qingchengshan Base, Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Base, Wolong Walnut Ping Base, and Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base under the jurisdiction of China Giant Panda Conservation Research Center.
Although some of these institutions also develop and visit the outside world, they are not ordinary zoos, but focus on the breeding, protection and research of giant pandas, and protect giant pandas through artificial breeding, rescue, and rewilding release. Compared with ordinary zoos, the conditions of professional research bases are obviously much better, but this model is also destined to be unpopular.
Why do we rent pandas abroad?
It is often said that all zoos should be closed and animals released into the wild, and there are even those who oppose pets, arguing that this restricts the freedom of animals. But on the contrary, in many cases, animals can live freely in the wild thanks to the efforts of zoos.
Many people have heard that renting pandas abroad is a huge rent, some say 500,000, some say 1 million, but few people can realize what this money means. In recent days, military generals have often seen people claiming: "Bring the giant pandas back from the United States, China is not bad for rent!" "Is that really the case?
In the case of the lease agreement between Zoo Atlanta and China, for example, Zoo Atlanta not only has to pay $1 million a year in rent for each giant panda, but also an additional $600,000 a year for each cub if the panda gives birth. Not only that, but Zoo Atlanta must also pay China $1 million a year for giant panda research and conservation programs, which is simply overlord clause!
We can calculate that taking a 10-year lease period as an example, Zoo Atlanta will have to give China 2 million yuan in rent per year for 10 years, and an additional 1 million yuan in research funding, which has reached 30 million US dollars. Zoo Atlanta has bred 7 cubs, which is more than 12 million based on the return of each cub after 3 years. And that's just two giant pandas! At present, there are more than 60 giant pandas leased abroad by the mainland, and it is estimated that the annual income is tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
▲The construction of giant panda breeding bases and protected areas is an extremely expensive project
According to the agreement, a large part of this money is used for research and conservation of giant pandas. Building panda breeding bases in China and establishing panda wildlife reserves and national parks are extremely expensive projects. Without the annual rent of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per panda abroad, and without the tickets for a large number of pandas in domestic zoos, this money can only be allocated extra from the state finance, and may not even be able to carry out these projects at all.
On the other hand, in order to expand the scale of artificial breeding of giant pandas, every time the giant pandas leased out by the mainland are one male and one female, the age is suitable for artificial breeding of pandas, the purpose is to allow cooperative zoos to participate in artificial breeding projects, accumulate experience in breeding pandas, and promote the growth of artificial breeding technology. After all, at that time, most of the zoos in the mainland were still extremely backward, far inferior to the breeding level of Western developed countries, and this exchange did play a big role.
▲Through this cooperation, we have indeed achieved a lot of research results
In addition, different zoos can also exchange panda breeding experience, you must know that more than ten years ago, our understanding of giant pandas was still wrong. For example, the San Diego Zoo in the United States, which once kept pandas, found that giant pandas will have diarrhea when eating bamboo, milk and egg food at the same time, solving the problem that has plagued domestic experts for many years.
For those giant pandas who are kept in captivity in zoos and become "fertility machines", often receiving electric shocks, anesthesia, and giving birth at an age, such a life is undoubtedly miserable. But if you want to study giant pandas and better protect them, these are indispensable means. The purpose of captivity breeding pandas is not just for people to see, since their birth, they have shouldered the great destiny of paying and even dedicating themselves to scientific research and conservation. If this goal can be achieved, the efforts and sacrifices of these pandas will also have value.
Giant pandas are not our pet cats and dogs in our household. They may be cute, as if they were born to sell cute, and military mushrooms can often see people asking: When can a panda have one? But what we want to protect giant pandas is not a single panda or a few pandas, but the entire population of wild giant pandas, and then protect all the wild animals and plants in the entire ecosystem by protecting giant pandas.
We protect giant pandas not because they are cute, but so that more pandas and other wild animals can freely shuttle between the mountains and forests, and live without being disturbed by outsiders. And panda conservation without wild pandas is meaningless.