The panda Shuan Shuan at the Chapultepec Zoo, in Mexico City, in July 2015. Cuartoscuro
One of the last survivors of the so-called "panda diplomacy" has passed away.
Shuan Shuan, a descendant of the first panda bears given by the Chinese government to Mexico in 1975, died this Wednesday at the capital's zoo, hours after his 35th birthday celebration.
With Shuan Shuan, a piece of the history of a lineage of pandas disappears, with only one living specimen left, Xin Xin.
The panda lived its last day "full of joy", according to the Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City, which precisely on that day organized a great celebration party for the birthdays of Shuan Shuan and Xin Xin and for the 99th anniversary of the panda. Creation of the Chapultepec Zoo.
The panda took one last bite of date and apple pie, his favorite food, and then said goodbye as one of the longest-living giant pandas in the world, one of only eight that managed to exceed 30 years.
Mexico has resisted the disappearance of these animals from its land, but its attempts have not come to fruition.
In 2014, the Chapultepec Zoo tried to reproduce Xin Xin through artificial insemination after obtaining panda semen samples from China, but they were unsuccessful.
Now that panda is also nearing the end of its days - it is 32 years old, above the average for survival in captivity, of 30 years - and the country's hopes of continuing to shelter this species are running out.
The most famous of the lineage of panda bears in Mexico was Tohuí, sister of Shuan Shuan.
She was the first giant panda cub to survive outside of China and her birth generated a real euphoria among the people of the capital, who made long lines in the 80s to meet her.
The animal even starred in a popular song performed by Yuri,
The Little Panda of Chapultepec
.
His little sister was the seventh and last offspring of the first giant pandas to arrive in Mexico: Pe pe and Ying Ying.
The couple was given as a symbol of friendship between China and Mexico, three years after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
That gesture of "good will" would be a hallmark of Chinese policy until the end of the 1980s to strengthen relations with other governments, although the strategy would change later.
Since the late 1980s, the Chinese government has only loaned or rented pandas for large sums of money, and even cubs born in other countries must be returned to China four years after birth.
But Shuan Shuan and Xin Xin were born before the change in "panda diplomacy," so they were the only ones in the world not owned by the Chinese government.
The efforts of the authorities of that country for the conservation and preservation of the natural habitat of the giant pandas - mainly in the central province of Sichuan - achieved that in 2017 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) removed them from their 'red list' of endangered species.
The usual heavy hand of the Government had its effect: the illegal hunting of pandas is punishable even with death.
Now the population of the species is increasing and there are more than 1,800 individuals in the wild in China, as well as more than 500 in breeding centers and zoos, the majority in that country.
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