Two
Chinese pandas left their breeding centre in southwestern China Sunday destined
for a 10-year stay in France, in a loan sealed after years of top-level
negotiations.
Huan Huan ("happy") and Yuan Zi
("chubby") left the centre in the city of Chengdu and were put on a
cargo flight bound for the French zoo they will call home under an agreement
reached between Paris and Beijing.
Hou Rong, head of the breeding centre, said the
main issue for the pandas on their long journey was likely to be the same as
that of their human companions on the "Panda Express", a Boeing 777
specially decorated with a panda motif.
"It is possible that they will suffer
jetlag," the professor said.
Huan Huan and Yuan Zi are the first pandas
sent to France since 1973, when Yen Yen -- who went on to live until 2000 --
was given to then president Georges Pompidou along with another panda, which
died shortly after arriving.
The latest furry ambassadors, who have been
specially selected for their breeding potential, are bound for the leading
Beauval zoo in the Loire region of central France.
But the French public will have to wait until
February 11 to get their first glimpse of the bears in their specially built
2.5 hectare (six acre) enclosure adorned with Chinese-style pagodas and marble
lion statues.
A deal on the endangered animals, famous for
their reluctance to breed, was to have been announced at the G20 summit in the
French resort of Cannes last November, but had to be delayed due to the
eurozone crisis.
China is famed for its "panda
diplomacy", using the bears as diplomatic gifts to other countries. Just
1,600 remain in the wild in China, with some 300 others in captivity worldwide
-- mostly in China.
David Algranti, who was named a
"pambassador" in 2010 and spent several weeks as the bears' official
guardian in Chengdu, was one of a handful of people given privileged access to
the quarantined pandas.
"France is lucky to be getting these two,
they are particularly lovable, and very good-looking," he said.
"Huan Huan sticks out her tongue a lot
and Yuan Zi loves to climb, he's quite sporty."
AFP
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