Amid much fanfare last month, Zoo Atlanta welcomed its long-awaited panda couple, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, who came from China. The number of visitors immediately tripled. Back in Washington, the National Zoo's Panda House stands empty until the funds can be raised for a 10-year loan of two pandas. They bring in the people, and that brings in the money. So it's no wonder zoos are clamoring to spend millions of dollars to get their own cuddly pair.
Giant pandas are cute, but odd.
Females are fertile for only three days a year and gain no weight during pregnancy. Only about 1,000 pandas are believed to exist in the wild, most of them in the remote mountaintops of China's Sichuan province. Such rarity comes at a price. Tales of rampant commercialism and Chinese corruption led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban the importation of the animals for five years while a stricter policy could be drafted. The new policy specifies that rent and any other funds generated directly by the display of pandas be given to China's extensive habitat conservation effort.