China holds funeral for panda killed by earthquake

by amyjudd | June 10, 2008 at 09:48 am | 242 views | 2 comments | 10 recommendations

A funeral was held today for Mao Mao, the nine-year old panda that was killed in the earthquake in China last month.
The funeral was held at the Wolong Nature Reserve.

The world famous panda center was badly damaged by the May 12 quake but officials initially thought all 64 pandas had survived. They later discovered that two were missing.

Nine-year-old Mao Mao, the mother of five at the breeding center, was found Monday, her body crushed by a wall of her enclosure when the river behind it swelled with landslide debris.

On Tuesday, panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and wheeled her quietly to a patch of ground outside the breeding center where a freshly dug hole waited.

The center's director, Zhang Hemin, stood with his cap in hand and then shoveled in a few spades of dirt. Mao Mao's keeper, He Changgui, stepped forward, crying, and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave. There were three minutes of silence.

As the others left, the director of the U.S.-based Pandas International, Suzanne Braden put her arm around He.

"You must look after her babies, OK?" she said. "And their babies."

He nodded. "I will go back to see her everyday," he said.

Forty-seven pandas continue to live at Wolong, while one other panda, Xiao Xiao, remains missing.

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cynthia yoo

Oh that's so sad...

rpshen
  • editor
rpshen
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:30 on June 10th, 2008

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff. So sad.

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June 10, 2008 at 09:48 am by amyjudd, 242 views, 2 comments

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