Chinese Pandas Start New Life in Spain as VIPs
Date: 10-Sep-07
Country: SPAIN
Seven-year-old male Bing Xing and 3-year-old female Huz Zui
Ba were whisked through an area usually reserved for presidents
and diplomats at Madrid airport before heading to the zoo in an
air-conditioned truck, escorted by paramilitary police.
The pandas, which risk extinction in their native mountains
and bamboo forests, are on loan to Spain as a goodwill gesture
by the Chinese government. It is hoped they will breed.
The shy creatures are expected to draw tens of thousands of
extra visitors to Madrid zoo, where they replace Chu Lin -- the
first panda born in capivity in Europe -- who died in 1996 aged
14.
