So what happened to london Zoos last Giant Panda Heres What i know so far. After the Death of Ching Ching, Chia Chia was sent on a permenent Breeding Loan to the Mexico City Zoo, So the zoo whas without a celebrity, but the koalas didn't fill the void. So Negotiations with China immediatley commenced, as the need for a new panda became more urgent. Finally Ming Ming arrived aswell as Bao Bao from Berlin Zoo. Bao Bao is back at Berlin Zoo. My Question, What Happened to Ming Ming to Cause The London Zoo To send Bao Bao back to Berlin???
Ming-Ming was on a short term loan from the Chinese, that only lasted a couple of years, so Bao-Bao, was brought over in the hope they would mate, but that never worked out, i remember this due to a bad taste introduction for the media overseen by Cilla Black from the ITV show blind date, truly cringeworthy.
ash, heres the story of pandas at london zoo Ming Lien Ho Chi Chi Chia Chia and Ching Ching Bao Bao and MING MING Thanks kiang, i presume it was so the baby panda would become theres? and ash, CHI CHI was a Female
Was there not a time at the zoo when there was 5 giant pandas on show at the one time, pre war years i think.
Yes......I think it was around the time of before and during WWII. The pandas (5) were evacuated to Whipsnade, along with many other animals, to avoid the bombing of London. I have heard this first hand from the daughter of the then head man at Whipsnade (not sure what the term was then....Director maybe or super-intendent??), so pretty sure it is true. Not sure of names of pandas, where they came from (although one presumes China) or where they went or if any of the previously mentioned pandas are any of these five.
London Zoo did, indeed, have five giant pandas pre-war, although I don’t think that all five were ever on show at one time. Five giant pandas arrived at London Zoo on Christmas Eve, 1938. They were originally called ‘Baby’, Grumpy’, ‘Dopey’, ‘Happy’ and 'Grandma’. ‘Grandma’ died shortly afterwards on 9th January 1939. ‘Happy’ was sent round various European zoos and eventually ended up in St. Louis, USA, where he died on 10th March 1946. The ZSL retained ‘Baby’, ‘Grumpy’ and ‘Dopey’ renaming them ‘Ming’, ‘Tang’ and ‘Sung’ respectively, so that they had oriental names. ‘Sung’ died on 18th December 1939, ‘Tang’ died on 23rd April 1940 and the famous ‘Ming’ died on 26th December 1944.
Yes, some of the early London Zoo giant pandas were evacuated to Whipsnade during the Second World War. (Not five, though, as of the original five ‘Grandma’ had already died and ‘Happy’ was in St. Louis.) The superintendent of Whipsnade during this time was Captain William Beal, who features heavily in Gerald Durrell’s book “Beasts in my Belfry”.
Let's not forget Ann Ann from Moscow zoo was brought over at one time (mid 1960s ?) to breed with Chi Chi and I think a year or two later Chi Chi was sent over to Moscow to meet Ann Ann again on home turf this time, while Ann Ann seemed to want to get to know Chi Chi she did not want anything to do with him.
He was indeed. I saw him there many times during that period. He was a large mature male and overweight when he came, but slimmed down to normal size due to increased exercise in the London enclosure- and maybe proximity to ChiChi too... AnAn was a very normal male Panda, whereas ChiChi was humanised and became stressed whenever they were introduced. In his book 'Men & Pandas' Desmond Morris describes supervising the visits of ChiChi to Moscow Zoo. During one of her heat periods when they were introduced, AnAn made very determined efforts to mate her, but she would not stand for him- immediately they were seperated she 'presented' at the bars to people again..
brilliant history knowledge zoo chatters!!!! from my experience, many zoos and animal parks do not promote the history of their collections as much as they should
Absolutely. Sadly alot of zoos (not all though) dont appreciate their own history quite as much as we do! I can never understand why. Often when you contact a zoo about something from their past you find that they are either not interested or simply dont know!
Yes, and that is usually true for animals/events from even just a couple of decades ago- not just from the long distant past...
