Posted on 10 September 2005 @ 20:39 in News
I was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times in an article about viewing animal web cams.
A while back, I received an email from Claudia Zequeira, an LA Times reporter, asking if I’d agree to be interviewed (via email) about watching giant pandas on web cams. Of course, I agree, lah!
The article was published on 6 September 2005. Here’s my part of the article:
| But because the lighting is often kept low to avoid disturbing the animals, some creatures look like furry blobs. On the panda cams, the round black ears are sometimes the only clues indicating the head.
None of the limitations matter to Chet Chin, an avid panda viewer who logs on in Malaysia. “I don’t really care what the image looks like,” Chin said in an e-mail. “I enjoy the experience of watching their lives. Especially when there’s a mother and her cub.”
The San Diego pandas so captivated Chin that she visited the zoo in 2001 just to see Hua Mei, the then-2-year-old female Chin had monitored since birth. |
Full article here.
Claudia is now with the Orlando Sentinel. Thanks, Claudia.
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Posted on 10 July 2005 @ 09:06 in News, Stress Busters
OH MY GOD!!!
The National Zoo in Washington, DC has FINALLY been gifted with a baby giant panda. Mei Xiang, the female giant panda there gave birth to a cub at 3:41 a.m. on 9 July.
I wouldn’t have known if Donna hadn’t emailed to let me know, and if the subject line of her email hadn’t said “BABY PANDA!”
From what I know, panda babies usually aren’t born till mid August onwards (well, this is based on San Diego Zoo’s Mama Bai Yun’s two babies so far, both born around that time). So Mei Xiang’s baby cub is a REALLY special one.
I went to the National Zoo’s giant panda site and was greeted with the news. Here’s an extract from the page:
Full story here:
Giant Pandas - National Zoo FONZ
The National Zoo was the first American zoo to have giant pandas - a pair presented in the early 1970s to commemorate President Nixon’s visit to China. At a dinner sometime during the visit, Nixon’s wife was sitting with Premier Chou En Lai. On the table was a cigarette tin with a picture of a giant panda. Mrs Nixon remarked how much she liked the black and white animal, and Premier Chou then arranged for a pair to be presented to her.
The two National Zoo pandas, Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling, soon became the darlings of Washington, DC. Their lives were closely followed, especially their mating attempts, the resulting pregnancies and births, and national mourning when none of the cubs survived. Ling Ling died in the early 1990s, and Hsing Hsing in 1999. A year to the day of his death, a group of representatives from the Zoo were in Wolong Centre, China, to take delivery of two new giant pandas, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang.
After their arrival, there were a few attempts at mating, and pseudo pregnancies, but now, more than 30 years since their first pair of giant pandas, the National Zoo finally has its own first giant panda cub.
And Mei Xiang is now Mama Mei Xiang.
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Posted on 24 May 2005 @ 11:50 in Health, News
This is why I’ve yet to sign a donor card:
Transplant patients die from rodent virus
Dunno what I’ve exposed my body to all these years, and wouldn’t want to pass it on to anyone.
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Posted on 14 February 2005 @ 16:53 in News
“Baby 81″ has been identified and his parents found, thanks to DNA testing.
Complete story here:
Joy as ‘Baby 81′ identified
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Posted on 15 January 2005 @ 23:22 in News
Read at CNN Online that Venice’s canals are drying up due to “good weather and an unusual combination of planetary influences.” (full story here - Gondolas stuck as Venice waters recede).
This is sad news because it means Venice’s reputation as a romantic city par excellence is at stake. Not that I’ve been there, let alone sat in a gondola with anyone special (not that there’s anyone special).
I remember reading about Venice in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, a “fantastical tale of Henri–Napoleon’s cook–and Villanelle, a Venetian gondolier’s daughter who has webbed feet (previously an all-male attribute), works as a croupier, picks pockets, cross-dresses, and literally loses her heart to a beautiful woman.”
Reading about Venice makes me wanna pick up The Passion to read again. Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy; the one I read was borrowed from the library at the place where I work.
Reading about Venice and thinking of The Passion, a certain someone comes to mind. *sigh*
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