Eat leaves, sleep, repeat: Malaysian-born baby panda finally gets official name

via mStar
via mStar

Hello, fellow jaded and cold hearts: We come bearing good news. Sorta? Cute news and some fun facts.

Malaysia’s second panda cub, born in January of last year, progeny of Zoo Negara’s in-house celebrity animals, Liang Liang and Xing Xing, has finally been given a name.

Yi Yi, meaning friendship, was chosen as a nod at the warm four-decade-long diplomatic ties shared between Malaysia and China, according to Land, Water, and Natural Resources Minister Xavier Jayakumar.

“Today marks a historic moment as we name the second cub. The government of Malaysia has carefully selected and consulted the China Wildlife Conservation Association before finalizing on a deemed suitable name.”

“It is my fervent hope that akin to the meaning of the name, the friendship between Malaysia and the People’s Republic of China will further enhanced (and) not limited to giant panda conservation efforts but also diplomatically and economically,” he told members of the media at Zoo Negara today.

When asked of the cub’s progress, he confirmed that a local team of veterinarians and zoologists had been monitoring Yi Yi’s progress, and that over the last year and a half, she had grown from 750 grams at birth, to now weighing almost 50kg.

“She is active, bonds well with her mother and in good health. Though the cub still feeds on milk, it has also been exposed to other diets such as bamboo leaves and carrots. This displays the normal physiological progress and cub’s maturity.”

If you were wondering what a panda’s diet would usually entail in the wild (we’re always wondering), according to the World Wildlife Fund, panda diets are 99% stems, shoots and leaves from the bamboo plant. The doe-eyed bears eat between 12-38kg daily, as the plants are so low in nutritional value. They’ll occasionally branch out into other plants, and will sometimes hunt for small rodents. However, their reliance on bamboo makes them very vulnerable, should their habitat be encroached.

Yi Yi’s parents, Liang Liang and Xing Xing, arrived in Malaysia on May 21, 2014, as part of a 10-year loan program. They soon gave birth to a female cub, Nuan Nuan, who was sent back to China to live in the country’s Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas in November 2017.

Why? Well, in order to understand that, let’s buckle up and have a little lesson on Panda Diplomacy.

Now, all of the giant pandas, across the world, sitting in international zoos and conservations belong to China. Yes, all of them, and those cute little furry, sleepy babies are bargaining chips that Beijing can take on or off the table, if they so please.

Initially used as a gesture of goodwill by Chairman Mao, one of the most famous “gifts” was to the United States in 1972, following Nixon’s visit to the PRC. These pandas were so popular, and such a draw to the National Zoo in Washington DC, that two years later, British Prime Minister Edward Heath asked China if they wouldn’t mind sending over a pair of pandas as well.

Now, as pandas became more endangered back home, having been added to the at-risk list in 1984, China shifted their strategy, to a rent-a-panda model, charging foreign zoos upwards of US$50,000 per panda, per month, to house their precious bears. This was eventually changed to a slightly less unsavory, and more conservation-minded, long-term panda loan scheme, where money generated went back to trying to keep pandas off the endangered species list.

According to Oxford-based panda diplomacy academic Kathleen Buckingham, things changed in the late 2000s, after an earthquake left 67% of panda habitat badly affected, with all of the 60 pandas who were housed at the Wolong Reserve needing temporary foster care. The following year, the number of zoos went up who received pandas.

Buckingham also points out that pandas are often given as gifts following a successful trade deal. However, should Beijing be displeased, their government is not above withholding the promised pandas, as we saw right here in Malaysia. A 2012 agreement to send over a pair of pandas in April 2014 came and went with no delivery, with China reportedly upset over the handling of MH370, and thus withholding the pandas for a month.

China giveth, China taketh away. Holler at us, One Belt, One Road.

And that concludes today’s panda talk.



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