. | . |
Giant panda pair headed for Tokyo zoo Tokyo (AFP) July 27, 2010 A pair of Chinese giant pandas are soon headed for Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, where the fluffy bamboo eaters are set to delight the crowds from early next year. The Tokyo metropolitan government, which runs the zoo, this week finalised a deal under which it will pay a giant price tag of almost a million dollars a year for the next decade to keep the animals. The money is to be spent on wild animal protection in China. The zoo will ask the Japanese public to nickname the two pandas, a 143-kg male and 124-kg female, media reports said. An extension of the lease can be negotiated, a Tokyo official said, and the zoo can keep babies born to the pair for the first two years, although China retains their ownership. The crowd-pleasers are expected to boost attendance at the zoo, which attracted three million visitors last year, down from a peak of more than seven million in the mid-1970s. Ling Ling, the zoo's last panda, died of heart failure in 2008 at the age of 22 -- the equivalent of 70 human years. The new pandas will come to Japan in line with a 2008 agreement between Chinese President Hu Jintao and then prime minister Yasuo Fukuda.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com
Primitive Frogs Do A Belly Flop Edwardsville IL (SPX) Jul 26, 2010 Sometimes divers, to their own painful dismay, do belly flops. But did you ever see a frog belly flop? That's just what primitive living frogs do, according to a new study by Dr. Richard Essner, from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in the US, and colleagues, looking at the evolution of frog jumping and landing. They found that frogs became proficient at jumping before they perfec ... read more |
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |