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National Zoo celebrates panda exchange program’s 50th anniversary with treat
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The pandas that reside within the nation’s capital acquired to snack on a particular anniversary cake because the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute marked 50 years because the change settlement with China.
Over the weekend, the Washington, D.C.-based zoo served its beloved pandas Mei Xiang, 23, and her cub Xiao Qi Ji, 1, frozen “fruitsicle” cake comprised of diluted apple and pineapple juice.
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The deal with was topped with candy potato, apple, carrot, pear, sugar cane, banana and yellow groove bamboo. A vibrant quantity 50 was connected to the highest of the cake.
The Related Press reported that the mom and son panda duo devoured their cake in about quarter-hour.
Mei Xiang’s mate, Tian Tian, 24, was served an identical fruit cake later that afternoon.
Through the “pandaversary,” as zoo officers known as it, Chinese language ambassador Qin Gang mentioned the panda change program was “an emblem of the friendship” between the U.S. and the Folks’s Republic of China.
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This system acquired its begin in 1972 when Chinese language Premier Zhou Enlai gifted a pair of pandas to the Nationwide Zoo after listening to first girl Patricia Nixon loved seeing pandas throughout her journeys to China, in line with Lonnie G. Bunch III – the 14th secretary of the Smithsonian Establishment.
Twelve years later, this system was adjusted from a gifting program right into a mortgage program. Below this modification, pandas bred in China can solely be loaned to a world ally for 10 years.
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Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are as a result of be returned to China in 2023, in line with the Nationwide Zoo.
Pandas are native to southwest China.
Big pandas Mei Xiang (left) and her cub Xiao Qi Ji eat a fruitsicle cake in celebration of the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s panda change program’s fiftieth anniversary.
(AP Photograph/Jose Luis Magana)
Panda bears have a lifespan that ranges between 15 and 20 years within the wild, and about 30 when stored in captivity.
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The Smithsonian’s first panda, Hsing-Hsing, lived to the age of 28. The world’s oldest panda in captivity, Jia Jia, lived till 38 at Ocean Park Hong Kong, in line with Guinness World Data.