Birthday girl set for career as a cutie
Print Edition
THOUSANDS braved the summer heat yesterday to celebrate the first birthday of Yuan Zai, the first giant panda born in Taiwan, which has attracted millions of visitors over the past six months.
Around 3,000 people took part in a 10-kilometer run that was part of a series of events marking the birthday.
Visitors cheered Yuan Zai when she was presented with a birthday cake — made by zookeepers of apples, pineapples, carrots and buns.
Another highlight was when the cub grabbed different cards in zhuazhou — a traditional crawling game for one-year-old babies in many Chinese communities.
The first card or object to be grabbed indicates a future career path or interest, according to custom. Yuan Zai initially picked up the card for painter.
The cub made her public debut in January and since then Taipei City Zoo has often been swamped with fans.
In the first six months of this year, 2.4 million people visited — up 50 percent on the same period of 2013.
Yuan Zai was delivered on July 6 2013 following a series of artificial insemination sessions because her parents — Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan — failed to conceive naturally.
She weighed 180 grams at birth but now tips the scales at around 34 kilograms.
Mother and daughter were reunited on August 13 last year, a meeting that saw mom licking and cuddling her baby before they fell asleep together.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, whose names mean “reunion” in Chinese, were given to Taiwan by China’s mainland in December 2008, becoming star attractions at Taipei Zoo.
Fewer than 1,600 pandas remain in the wild, mainly in Sichuan Province, with a further 300 in captivity.
(AFP)
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