Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Panda trivia



What panda's does China not "own" and what offspring will they never, ever be able to re-call, take back, renig, fingers crossed, indian giver, etc. etc.  no matter how angry or pissed of they may become at some supposed political slight?  Click photo to enlarge.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: What's the answer to your question? I wonder if Pyongyang's giant pandas were outright gifts or rentals. A lion recently escaped from the local zoo near here in Wendover, outside Ottawa. It was a male African lion and was shot by the police. Mary Ann told me that Siegfried & Roy visited this zoo after they had a white lion birth. The cub didn't stay white. Maybe that's the one that was shot. By the way speaking of Pyongyang they have grabbed another American. North Korea is holding a 21 year old university student from Ohio. They also have a Canadian Christian minister who was given a life sentence. I don't get people who go to North Korea for a vacation. I'd rather go to hell. Iran has also arrested another American. I seem to recall that during the Cold War Germany was paying Romania to release ethnic Germans and the Romanians used to say it was more profitable to breed Germans than pigs. I know you may not want to post this. Take care. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Wade: Desmond Morris said that London Zoo received a reply from the director of Beijing Zoo when they were trying to obtain a male panda to breed with Chi Chi. The Beijing Zoo director said that since the Government of China had become concerned over the dwindling numbers of pandas in the wild they could not export any more. The director of Singapore Zoo has said that the panda is an evolutionary failure which should be allowed (encouraged?) to go extinct. This is an animal which doesn't seem to want to take responsibility for its own reproduction. I can't find anything on the internet about giant pandas in North Korea's national zoo, the Korea Central Zoo in Pyongyang. However South Korea's biggest amusement park Everland resort has a pair of giant pandas. The Beauval Zoo in France also has pandas and there's a really long list of zoos all over the world with pandas. The zoo in Vienna has them. That reminds me. I saw on TV recently that Austria has turned Arnold's childhood home into a museum. It's as if Austria were a US state and he grew up to be President which actually seemed like a possibility before the California economy tanked. Arnold is the most famous living Austrian. I wonder if they have pictures of him in classrooms in Austria. I've heard that every schoolroom in Ireland has a picture on the wall of some member of the Kennedy family and that classrooms in Czechoslovakia had pictures of Woodrow Wilson on their walls because he was sort of the father of their country after WWI. Sorry I've gone on too long and have to leave. Take care. Sincerely Paul

Wade G. Burck said...

Paul The answer is Mexico City's pandas. Wisely zoo's no longer reference breeding and longevity as signs of good animal welfare. Often time's reproduction/birth is nothing more then shit house luck. Mexico produced panda's in an ugly exhibit with a couple of playground structure's for enrichment in small tile walled concrete floored night den's when other "bigger, more famous" zoo's failed with all their money, closed circuit video monitoring equipment, As a good will gesture ownership of Mexico's pandas(offspring of the original gift panda. the "gift" long gone) has been given to China with the stipulation that they never leave Mexico. Given China's dastardly "rental policy" for pandas, I think I would have insisted that not only does Mexico retain their panda's forever, if China want's token ownership they would be required to feed, care for or other wise finance their maintenance forever.

Wade Burck

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: Are the pandas in Mexico City Zoo descendants of the original gift pair? If they are I don't see how China would have any claim on the offspring. After Ling Ling & Hsing Hsing went to Washington D.C. with Nixon a number of zoos were given pandas as I'm sure you're aware like London, Madrid etc. I have some more trivia/ The logo of the World Wildlife Fund is not just a generic panda. It is Chi Chi. I wonder of that's because Prince Philip was the head of the World Wildlife Fund and of the London Zoological Society. I agree with you about all the China stuff, but maybe the pandas pay for themselves by increasing zoo revenues and tourism to host cities. Still you would think. I have to run. By the way I graduated from John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue. Their logo is a zebra's ass. Take care. Sincerely Paul

Wade G. Burck said...

Paul, Yes, Mexico's panda's are descendants of the original gift. It was only a "good will" gesture that Mexico said, you can say you own all the panda's in the world, It's no big deal, but the zoo world know's different. It has been learned that the "increased" revenue occur's for 3 years, then returns to "pre-panda" numbers. Folks then await the arrival of the next "animal 0 the day."

Wade Burck

Anonymous said...

Wade: There was a picture in the paper today of Justin Trudeau playing with the twin panda cubs at the Toronto Zoo. The Premier of Ontario and the Chinese Ambassador went with him. The historic range of the giant panda stretched into Burma. I wonder how recently they lived there. There are smaller pandas in the fossil record. When Nancy Reagan died I started thinking about "Pennies for Pandas". That was her thing. The adult pandas at Toronto Zoo will eventually move on to Granby and Calgary zoos, I think after 6 years or so. I remember reading strange things years ago about Ling Ling & Hsing Hsing. One things was that she was older and was dominating him and mounting him, assuming the male role, and he was ejaculating prematurely. The thing is though they had a number of cubs, but all died. It reminds me of, and I know this is a convoluted analogy, Henry VIII wanting a son. He actually had a number of sons with his first wife, but they were all infant mortalities. He couldn't blame her for that. It's amazing how this computer checks my spelling so I make less of a fool of myself. Take care. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Wade: There was also a picture in Desmond Morris' Men & Pandas of a London Zoo poster with the caption: "He's Back !", or something like that, featuring Ming the giant panda returning to the zoo after the war. I guess his hair grew back and he was moved to safety out in the country during the WWII bombing. Maybe he was at Whipsnade Zoo ? Anyway the artist made him look decidedly Churchillian in the poster. I was thinking with all this talk about "natural born American", and who has a constitutional right to run for President, wouldn't Churchill have qualified since his mother was American like Cruz's? But the U.S. Congress made Churchill a U.S. citizen after the war. He wanted all British and American people to have shared citizenship. Sincerely Paul

Wade G. Burck said...

Paul,
The American electoral process has become such a debacle that it embarrasses and saddens me to even speak of it anymore.In the case of Churchill, his citizenship was honorary, at the time nothing more then a "Kentucky Colonel." Prior to 1934, U.S. citizen mothers could not transmit U.S. citizenship to children born abroad; only U.S. citizen fathers could do that. In 1994, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Technical Corrections Act, which granted citizenship to people born abroad to a U.S. citizen mother before 1934. Prior to 1994 Churchill would not be an American citizen, but were he still alive today, after 1994 he would have been in the same boat as Cruz and the current President Barack Obama, although technically Obama was born on American soil, but Cruz is a "Canuck." :) You have had 4 Prime Minister's born on foreign soil, 3 born in Scotland and one born in England. Maybe your historic "duty to the Queen" make's that okay, but what if one had been born in Iraq, from Isil ideology parent's, immigrating to Canada and Canadian citizenship later in life. Still okay? Do you want him/her fooling with your law's and loonies? My opinion, a flawed American law was changed into another flawed American law. If one parent is a citizen, you are a citizen with all the rights and freedom's our constitution permit's, but you can not EVER run for the highest office of that constitutional government.

Wade

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: I actually figured that at the time that Churchill was alive citizenship was only inherited from the father. I had a Canadian mother so I did not inherit Canadian citizenship and in Canada the last time I checked Aboriginal status in Canada was inherited only from the father, and Native women who married non-Natives lost their Aboriginal status, none of which has anything to do with me. I could run for President of the United States since I am a "natural born citizen", but I'm guessing that Pee Wee Herman would stand a better chance of winning and he would probably make a better president than me. I know you've met him. Would you endorse him? For most of the time that I stayed in touch with Mary Ann Howell the Governor of Michigan was a Canadian lady. I've seen her on CNN lately talking about Donald Trump, the former Governor I mean, not Mary Ann. I've never seen Mary Ann on TV. I knew that Churchill's U.S. citizenship was honorary. I was thinking before that Senator McCain was born in Panama, and I've heard people say that's OK because he was born in a military hospital, but so what? He was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. Territory (I'm not sure who it was who said "We stole it fair and square.") and on top of that he had two American parents. It's the same with the sitting President of the United States. If he had been born in Kenya (which he wasn't of course like you said) he still had an American mother and generations of American ancestry. He even had ancestors who owned slaves. Obama's father was a rising star in the Kenyan Government, but his political fortunes waned when there was a change in government. I knew that John Turner, who was Prime Minister of Canada, was born in England and he dated the Queen's sister. Technically a couple of U.S. presidents were born outside the United States, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, because there was no United States when they were born. They were British subjects and George Washington was a serving officer in the British Army. For the first year of the Revolutionary War he used to toast the health of the king. I think one of the American founding fathers could not run for President because he was born in one of the British West Indian colonies. Sir John A. MacDonald was Canada's first Prime Minister and he was Scottish. He is basically the father of Canada. Canadians think that Alexander Graham Bell was Canadian and not American. Some Canadians think that Canada defeated the United States in the War of 1812. In the War of 1812 New England nearly seceded and sided with the British, and the U.S. came close to having to fight a civil war and the British Empire at the same time. At the peace negotiations the British were demanding that the U.S. hand over Maine, in which case I guess it would have become a province of Canada. The British also promised Michigan to their Native allies in Upper Canada as their own country. I was shocked to learn the other day that Ernest Hemmingway was a KGB agent. I also heard that FDR once attended a rally in Florida at which an anarchist tried to kill him. The mayor of Chicago was shot and FDR drove to the hospital with the mayor's head in his lap and holding his hand. He died at the hospital. Oh you mean Cruz should have citizenship, but not be allowed to take office if he's elected President. It's funny the polls show that Hillary would beat Trump (He'd get 44%.), but Cruz or Rubio would beat her. It seemed like Arnold and his backers were not going to let a pesky little thing like the United States Constitution stand in the way of his presidential ambitions, and he never felt as though he had to give up his Austrian citizenship. Unfortunately the California economy took a turn for the worst and scuttled his plans. I'm about to get cut off here. Thanks for the message. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: I watched a series of documentaries which were on PBS recently about Irish castles which was really interesting. One featured a very old man who was quite unusual in that he was one of the very few hereditary Lords who still lives in his castle in Ireland. He was captured by the Germans during WWII and was a POW. He was asked about this, and said that his mother's mother was Winston Churchill's mother's sister. He didn't say whether the Germans knew this. So his mother and Churchill were first cousins. (I was just thinking that Churchill, FDR, and MacArthur were all cousins) It would also mean that his mother's mother was an American and I wondered whether that would make him an American also. I know that it wouldn't because you've already explained that, but he's still a quarter American. Also you can't have a foreign title and keep American citizenship and I don't think you can serve in a foreign government and keep American citizenship. Remember what happened to Conrad Black? There's a cautionary tale in all of that. He gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord and then landed in an American prison. Lord Black! When he wanted to return to Canada to live he had problems despite being married to a Canadian. I was also wondering whether the Prince of Monaco is an American. Princess Grace was, but I guess you can't have a royal title and keep your US citizenship, but still I'm sure (I'm about to get cut off) Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Wade: Just to conclude I was thinking that the Prince of Monaco must speak flawless American English and was educated in the U.S., like the King of Jordan and the Prime minister of Israel. The Israeli PM grew up in the US. This has nothing to do with anything, but Tom Cruise went to high School here in Ottawa, Canada. I found this on the internet: "Statue of giant panda who lifted wartime spirits Ming the panda arrived in London as a cub in 1937 and was a huge hit among children including two princesses." The Telegraph Wednesday 16 March 2016. The statue is a gift from China along with a ten thousand pound donation for London Zoo. Apparently Ming was a girl. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: Did you hear that SeaWorld has ended it's killer whale breeding program apparently because of Blackfish? I assume they won't be capturing any more wild killer whales and their current collection will just die off. It occurred to me that the previous Queen of Jordan (Dowager Queen?), Noor is an American. Sincerely Paul

Wade G. Burck said...

Paul,
The Sea World announcement is devastating. More so, in my mind then Ringling's elephant announcement. Nothing more to even say about it, just devastating......... No, I would not vote for Pee Wee Herman. Pierre Trudeau is still fresh in my mind, and I have already seen the writing on the wall.

Wade Burck

Anonymous said...

Wade: They were talking about the Ringling elephant announcement on CNN in connection with the SeaWorld story, and now as a result they are showing Blackfish again at 10:00 on Sunday night. They said that SeaWorld stock has shot up by 9%. There was another bizarre story in today's newspaper, some rubbish about chimpanzees having a religion or believing in God. Sounds like Planet of the Apes and deja vu all over again. By the way they made some comment on CNN as though it would be a disaster if they set SeaWorld's killer whales free and they were to breed with wild killer whales. I'm guessing that SeaWorld's whales are subspecific hybrids and trash whales and they don't want to introduce genetic pollution into the sea. Anyway I have to run. Take care. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: I hear there was a military coup in Zimbabwe, and high time too. I wonder if this will have any effect on wildlife conservation. I think that country is the last stronghold of the eastern black rhino. Also Trump has reportedly removed any restrictions on importing trophies to the United States, but I guess scientists are telling us the world is pretty much finished anyway.Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: I found a little documentary on the internet about the history of giant pandas at the London Zoo. I think it is just 30 minutes long. One thing they said was that Brookfileld Zoo was supposed to have paid $25,000 for Chi Chi, not $28,000 like I thought. I think I was confused because $28,000 was the sum the Maharaja of Rewa originally wanted for Mohini Rewa the white tigress, and it was also the asking price for her father Mohan when the Maharaja placed an ad in The New York Times offering him for sale. Only one person answered his ad, a little old lady asking whether the white tiger would make a good pet to keep in her garden. The documentary said that giant pandas are the most valuable animals in the world. I almost forgot that the Maharaja of Rewa also sent a letter either to Bellevue Zoo in Manchester or to Gerald Iles personally offering Mohan for sale for $28,000. He seemed to think that the asking price was ridiculous, but Bellevue Zoo could have gotten the money back from breeding white tigers like Cincinnati Zoo did and made a huge profit and Bellevue Zoo was a for profit zoo. The panda documentary mentioned the entire list of African big game animals which Beijing Zoo received in exchange for Chi Chi. When I was a child somebody sent me a huge collection of postcards of animals at Beijing Zoo. I think it was the zoo's director. I remember they had thos amazing blue faced golden monkeys. Sincerely Paul

Anonymous said...

Dear Wade: CNN just reported that the President of China has given a pair of giant pandas to Moscow Zoo. Seems like old times. Sincerely Paul PS: Putin got snubbed on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.