A pair of pandas on loan from China to a Canadian zoo may quickly run out of fresh bamboo due to the coronavirus pandemic, the management of the establishment has warned, which is trying to speed up their return to their country of origin.
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The female Er Shun and the male Da Mao arrived in 2018 at the Calgary Zoo (west), where they were having peaceful days, each devouring their 40 kg of fresh bamboo imported from China daily. But the coronavirus pandemic has suddenly made it harder for them to get their favorite food after closing Canada's international borders.
Provisional solution
The Calgary zoo then turned to a plantation in British Columbia, but this solution will end in September with the harvest of the last bamboo of the season, said a spokeswoman for the zoo reached on Tuesday by AFP. “ You can't give them just any bamboo, otherwise they won't eat it, ” she explained. " Our refrigerators need to be restocked with fresh bamboo every three days to meet their dietary needs ."
Faced with these supply problems, the zoo decided last May to bring forward the return to China of Da Mao and Er Shin, on loan for 10 years and who arrived in Canada in 2013. But the zoo has not yet not received the authorizations from China, and its president Clément Lanthier expressed his " growing concern for the well-being of the giant pandas ".
" To date, China has not been able to approve international permits due to changes in its import legislation and quarantine measures related to Covid-19, " Clément Lanthier said in a statement released last week. These delays “ put the health and well-being of these two magnificent giant pandas in danger, ” he warned. The couple, housed at the Toronto Zoo when they arrived in Canada, gave birth to two baby pandas, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue. The little family then moved to the Calgary Zoo and the little ones were sent back to China last January.