Panda Birthdays
Two of the younger pandas at the San Diego Zoo are celebrating birthdays today and tomorrow. Problem is I can’t remember whose is today and whose is tomorrow. I had to go to the SDZ panda site to look them up. Okay, now I know who’s when.
Happy Birthday, Su Lin!
Su Lin, Bai Yun’s second daughter (but her first with Gao Gao), was born on 2 August 2005. Which makes her 4 today! And it is today, her birthday, both here in Malaysia and where she is in the States.
Tomorrow, 3 August 2009, is the birthday of her baby sister, Zhen Zhen, who was born on 3 August 2007.
SDZ’s panda team will celebrate both birthdays together on Monday, 3 August, with an ice “cake” for each of them at 9:00 a.m. PST.
It wasn’t so long ago that giant panda birthdays were rare events. With many of the older ones rescued from the wild, there was no way to know their dates of birth; for record purposes, the dates of their rescue would be noted instead.
As more and more giant pandas were born in captivity, so more and more dates of birth were recorded. But birthday celebrations were still not common occurences, at least not China, where many of these captive born pandas live. Then came the birth of the first giant panda cub in the West – Hua Mei, on 21 August 1999, in San Diego Zoo. She’s Bai Yun’s first born, but not with Gao Gao, and big sister of Su Lin and Zhen Zhen.
Hua Mei’s first birthday was celebrated with a birthday cake, and appearances on the local TV news. Since then, giant panda birthdays in the West have been celebrated on a regular basis. Hua Mei had at least 2 more birthday cakes in SDZ before returning to Wolong in 2004. Mei Sheng, her half-brother, was also feted with birthday cakes on his birthdays until his return to Wolong in 2007. Birthdays for Su Lin and Zhen Zhen since birth have likewise been celebrated. Even Tai Shan, their cousin who lives at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, has had every one of his birthdays celebrated since birth. He’s about three weeks older than Su Lin and turned 4 on 9 July 2009. His 4th birthday celebrations made it on CNN Worldwide news.
Of course, in the larger scheme of things, giant panda birthdays only matter to a small group of people – their keepers and their fans. But giant panda birthdays are not only occasions for ice “cakes”. Giant pandas are an endangered species so each birth and each birthday is a victory in the challenge to keep these precious black and white bears from extinction and to help them get off the endangered list.
Even if you’re not a panda fan, I hope you will join us in celebrating Su Lin’s birthday today (and Zhen Zhen’s birthday tomorrow) – not just panda birthdays, but panda milestones.
