(Singapore) Singaporeans bid an emotional farewell on Wednesday to a little 2-year-old panda that the authorities are preparing to send to China to join a program to protect the species.
Le Le, the first panda born in the Southeast Asian city-state, made his final public appearance at the River Wonders wildlife park before a month-long quarantine before his departure.
Dozens of visitors came to see him wander around his enclosure one last time, eating bamboo stalks and carrots that keepers had hidden under paper airplanes and in cardboard suitcases.
Among the audience was Lucilla Teoh, who describes herself as a “panda lover”, and wore a t-shirt and hat decorated with panda designs as well as sparkly panda earrings for the occasion.
The 61-year-old said she considered herself a “great aunt” to Le Le, as she had watched him grow from a small baby to a 73-kilogram youngster.
“It’s bittersweet, obviously I wish he’d stayed longer,” M saidme Teoh to AFP.
PHOTO MANDAI WILDLIFE GROUP/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Le Le was born in 2021 via artificial insemination. His parents, Jia Jia and Kai Kai, had failed to mate naturally.
“But I also think that he has a role to play in panda conservation, that it is important for him to go back to China, to grow up a little bit, and then I hope he will be an ambassador for pandas and that he will become like his parents.
Lydia Robangsa, who brought her nine-year-old daughter Dahlia to see Le Le for the last time, says they both feel “a little sad” to say goodbye to the panda. “I think Singapore is her home,” says the 40-year-old marketing executive.
Le Le was born in 2021 via artificial insemination. His parents, Jia Jia and Kai Kai, had failed to mate naturally.
The pair of pandas, aged 15 and 16, arrived in Singapore in 2012 thanks to a loan from China. Under the agreement, his offspring were to be sent to China to join a panda protection program.
PHOTO MANDAI WILDLIFE GROUP/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Le is scheduled to fly to Chengdu on January 16 in a custom-made crate aboard a Singapore Airlines cargo plane.
Breeding pandas – in captivity or in the wild – is notoriously difficult, experts say, because these animals are rarely in the mood to mate.
To further complicate matters, female pandas only go into heat once a year, for about two days.
Le is scheduled to fly to Chengdu on January 16 in a custom-made crate aboard a Singapore Airlines cargo plane.
China has long deployed “panda diplomacy”, lending these mammals to various countries, often to support its foreign policy objectives.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature WWF, there are approximately 1,860 giant pandas left in the wild, and approximately 600 in captivity worldwide.