Global Courant 2023-04-19 16:39:04
BANGKOK –
A giant panda on long-term loan from China died at a zoo in northern Thailand on Wednesday, six months before she was due to return home, Chiang Mai Zoo officials said.
The cause of Lin Hui’s death was not immediately clear, but she appeared to have fallen ill Tuesday morning and her nose was bleeding when she lay down after a meal, said Wutthichai Muangmun, the zoo’s director.
She was rushed into the care of a joint Thai-Chinese team of veterinarians, but her condition worsened and she died early Wednesday morning, he said.
Tewarat Vejmanat, a vet who spoke at a press conference broadcast live on the zoo’s Facebook page, said the panda, who underwent a health check every day, was already at an advanced age at 21 and there were no signs of of illness or any other sign. difference in her behavior before she became ill.
“China is saddened by the death of the giant panda Lin Hui,” Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in Beijing.
Wang said that after China learned about the panda’s disease, it “immediately organized experts to guide the Thai side to carry out rescue work via video link, but unfortunately did not save her life.” He added that Chinese authorities will soon set up a team of experts to jointly investigate the cause of death.
Lin Hui’s male partner, Chuang Chuang, who was kept with her at the Chiang Mai Zoo, died there in 2019 at the age of 19. years.
While the loan was ostensibly for research and conservation, it was widely regarded as an act of friendship by China, which has sent pandas to many countries in what is considered a striking example of soft power diplomacy.
When Chuang Chuang died in 2019, Thailand’s then environment minister Varawut Silpa-archa said the country should pay $500,000 to the Chinese government in compensation. It was later reported that heart failure was the cause of his death.
Zoo director Wutthichai said the zoo has a 15 million baht ($435,000) insurance policy for Lin Hui, who was to be returned to China in October.
Lin Hui and Chuang Chuang had a daughter, Lin Ping, in 2009 through artificial insemination. A plan to encourage them to mate naturally by showing them videos of pandas having sex made headlines in 2007. Lin Ping was sent to China in 2013 for what was initially supposed to be a year-long visit for her to find a mate, but has stayed there.
The life expectancy of a giant panda in the wild is about 15 years, but in captivity they have lived up to 38 years. Decades of conservation efforts in the wild and captive study have saved the giant panda species from extinction, increasing its population. from less than 1,000 at a time to more than 1,800 in the wild and in captivity.
A Chinese influencer living in Thailand who identified himself as Shanshan visited the zoo on Tuesday morning and posted several videos of Lin Hui on the Chinese social media platform Douyin. One of them showed her nose, which appeared to be bloody, and there was a red spot on her neck. In another clip, she lay licking her nose, and there were red stain marks on a concrete slab below her head. Screenshots of the videos were widely shared by Thai social media users.
“When we just got here, she was lying on her side. Then I saw that her nose was bleeding,” she said in one of the clips. “She looked like she was sick. We weren’t sure.’
Screenshots of the videos were widely shared by Thai social media users.
The cause of Lin Hui’s death will be some time before it can be determined, Wutthichai said, and how and when that is revealed will be entirely up to China. According to an agreement between the zoo and the Chinese government’s panda conservation project, an autopsy cannot be performed until a Chinese expert is present.
Some Thai internet users speculated that air pollution in northern Thailand, which has risen to levels considered dangerous to human health in recent weeks, contributed to Lin Hui’s death. However, zoo staff said this was unlikely, as Lin Hui lived in an enclosed area in an area of the zoo considered to have “the cleanest air”.
