What's the most popular Winter Olympics design with kids and teenagers? It must be the mascots (吉祥物). Bing Dwen Dwen, a panda in an ice shell, was chosen as the mascot for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in 2019. Now it has been made into lovely toys and models, as well as printed on notebooks, bags, and so on.
"The International Olympic Committee (国际奥组委) has found that successful mascots had to be cuddly (令人想拥抱的) and liked by 9-year-old children, " said Cao Xue, one of the designers of Bing Dwen Dwen. "And I knew Bing Dwen Dwen would be. "
Cao's team once made three designs, and Cao asked his 9-year-old son to choose his favorite. "When he first saw it, he chose Bing Dwen Dwen, which was the final mascot, " Cao said.
Cao's team tried many plants and animals, finally going with a panda. "What can better stand for China than our national treasure (宝藏)?" said Cao, "We don't need to say anything to have it understood across different cultures. "
They faced a problem, though, there were already too many cartoon pandas. Cao's team looked at panda designs from around the world. They wanted to make sure their panda was different. For this reason, Cao thought that it should be a baby panda. This is how they got Bing Dwen Dwen's body shape.
Bing Dwen Dwen looks like an astronaut in a space suit. It waves its left hand to say hello. It has two red hearts on its hand, showing kindness and love. A series of colored floating lines around its head look like the tracks on an ice rink (冰场). They refer to "Ice Ribbon (冰丝带)", which stand for Beijing's National Speed Skating. The colorful lines also refer to fast 5G signals.
Lin Wei, one of the panda keepers at the Chengdu Research Base, says, "Pandas are so cute and lovely. I take care of them like they're my own babies. I wash, feed and play with them every day. They're very special to me." In fact, many people around the world love these black and white animals. Pandas have become so popular that they are now a symbol of China.
Scientist say there are now fewer than 2,000 pandas living in the forests. Another 300 or so live in zoos or research centers in China and other countries. Pandas do not have many babies, maybe only one every two years. The babies often die from illnesses and do not live very long. Adult pandas spend more than 12 hours a day eating about 10 kilos of bamboo. Many years ago, there were a lot more bamboo forests and pandas in China, but then humans started to cut down these forests. As the forests get smaller and other human activities cause more problems, pandas cannot find enough to eat and they are having fewer babies.
Starting from September, 2016, the panda is no longer on the world's "endangered animal list".
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are about 1,850 pandas in the wild in China now. In 2003, the number was 1,600. So it takes the panda off the Red List.
China's hard work in the past 50 years to save the panda is paying off. China sets up reserves (保护区) and plants a lot of bamboo forests. Now, about two thirds of pandas are living in the 67 panda reserves.
How did Chinese researchers successfully increase the number of pandas? They put in money, science, time and love. Here are two examples of their hard work.
Bamboo is pandas' main food. And these guysare big eaters! A panda needs 12kg-38kg of bamboo a day. In the 1980s, without enough food, the number of pandas dropped to just over 1,200. To save pandas, China sets up 67 panda reserves and plants a lot of bamboo forests there.
But there is still bad news. Our earth is getting warmer. It's going to get too hot for the bamboo to grow. More than a third of bamboo forests could go away within 80 years, scientists say. It's still dangerous for pandas.
For at least 3,000 years, there have been many Chinese stories and poems about giant pandas. It's said that emperors kept these bears as a sign of wealth. A giant panda's skull（头盖骨）was found in the tomb of a wife of an emperor who lived over 2,000 years ago. Skins and bones of pandas have been discovered in older tombs as well. Today pandas are China's national symbol of peace and friendship.
All the forests of southern and eastern China were once the home of pandas. Now they live in the south-central mountains of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Gansu Provinces. The Chinese government has set up nature reserves in these mountains to protect pandas and other species of plants and animals.
Giant pandas have been known to spend up to 16 hours a day eating. They eat 30 to 40 pounds of food in one day! The reason why pandas eat so much is that bamboo doesn't have many nutrients (营养物). Bamboo is also hard to digest (消化) and pass through their bodies very quickly.
Pandas in the wild might live for 20 years. Pandas live longer in zoos. Hsing Hsing, a panda lived in an American zoo, died at the age of 28. In China, pandas in zoos have lived to be even longer.
Scientists looked for paw prints (爪印) in the forests. In this way, they knew the number of pandas! “It's hard to see pandas in the wild, “said Colby, a scientist. “They hide in the thick bamboo forests. “That's why scientists used paw prints to get the number. The number of the pandas was a surprise to scientists. They learned that more pandas lived in the wild!
We found pandas living in areas we didn't know, “said Colby. Although the news is good, pandas are in danger.
Here are some fun facts of pandas.
* It takes a panda more than 10 hours to eat 9kg to 14kg of bamboo every day.
* A newborn panda weighs 90～130 grams. That is about the weight of a mouse. A panda's front paws have wrist bones (腕骨) . The panda uses them to catch bamboo.
The main threat to pandas is that their land is becoming smaller and smaller. Pandas lose their land when people cut down parts of the forest for wood and farming. Now, China has 13 nature reserves (保护区) . People mustn't cut down trees there. Scientists want to create more nature centres to give pandas a better chance to live.
During the past summer season, photos of snow leopards were taken by five different special cameras in Pingwu, Sichuan province, surprising many wildlife scientists. This shows that the living area of snow leopards in China's southwestern mountains has become larger.
Pingwu, about 4200 meters above the sea level, is famous for being home to a large number of wild pandas. The fourth national survey of pandas in 2015 found that there were 1,864wild pandas in China, including 335 in Pingwu. As a result, over half of Pingwu's land area has become part of the Panda National Park, which has a planned area of 22,000 square kilometers across Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu provinces. It is among five national parks China named in October, 2021.
Through shutting down mines (煤矿), planting more trees and other measures, protection efforts in the park have not only made pandas less endangered, but also are offering safety and protection for other rare species (珍借物种). About 87% of the Panda National Park lies in Sichuan. It's the home of more than 8,000 species of animals and plants.
The province has used special cameras and forest protectors as a closely connected protection system. Thousands of forest protectors have been working year-round on more than 900 routes. Over the past four years, they have met rare animals for about 1,600 times. In Pingwu alone, more than 4,100 species of plants and 1,900 species of animals have benefited from the protection of pandas. For example, the number of takin, a rare animal, has increased by 10% over the past ten years. Meanwhile, the protection of pandas causes the development of human society, too.
Over 100 panda fans sang Happy Birthday as they celebrated the 38th birthday of Xin Xing at Chongqing Zoo on August 16th, 2020. Xin Xing enjoyed a cake made of ice covered by her favorite foods, including bamboo leaves and shoots, apples, carrots and watermelon.
A pandas average age in the wild is 14-20 years. Xin Xing is the world's oldest giant panda. A panda of 38 years old is like a person of about 110 to 130 years old. Xin Xing is expected to break the Guinness world record. Good genes and special scientific care are probably the main reasons for Xin Xing to live so long.
Xin Xing, born in Sichuan Province in 1982, was saved in the wild and sent to Chongqing Zoo in 1983. She visited Canada during the 1988 Winter Olympics, where she attracted over 1 million visitors. She is also a hero mom, having given birth to 10 pandas.
Now she is in good physical condition and she is going to 100 kg in weight. She eats seven meals a day, including 30 kg of bamboo shoots, 1 kg of bamboo leaves and some fruit. The zoo also pays much attention to her health, including daily blood pressure checks.
"We spend so much time together, and she is like a family member to me," said Zhang Naicheng, who has looked after her for 28 years. In recent years, Zhang has spent most of his nights staying in Xin Xing's panda house in case she needs him. "It's hard work, but I have fun looking after the panda," he said. Since she is too old to eat the hard skin of the bamboo shoots, the zookeepers choose fresh bamboo leaves that they can cut into small pieces.
Xin Xing's 38th birthday encourages people to try to protect the animals, especially those in danger.
① Fans sang a song for her. ② It was celebrated at the zoo.
③ She enjoyed a birthday cake. ④ It broke the world record.
Do you like pandas? Now you can watch them eat and play at iPanda. com 24 hours a day.
The panda is a symbol of China. There are only about 1, 600 pandas in the wild(野外). You can also see them in the zoos of many countries like the US and the UK.
Pandas have big black eyes and fat bodies(身体). When they eat, they sit on the ground and hold the food with two hands, just like children. They look very cute and funny.
Pandas usually live for 30 years. Now many pandas in the wild have no food to eat. They are in danger and they need our help.
A giant panda from the Beijing Zoo has been saved by a transfusion of blood from two black bears. But it's still under special care, according to the Beijing Zoo.
Yong Liang, two years old, is the first giant panda raised from birth in the zoo. Last month zoo keepers found the panda was suffering from serious anaemia (贫血症), calling for urgent（紧急的）blood transfusion.
The best way, according to the zoo's experts, to save Yong Liang from anemia would have been to transfuse blood from another panda. But it was the breeding (reproducing)(繁殖) season for giant pandas, making such a transfusion very difficult.
But the experts found that there exists（存在）a close consanguinity（血缘）between giant pandas and black bears, and so they decided to try to take blood from black bears in the zoo and transfuse it to Yong Liang.
With the help of hospitals and the Beijing Blood Donor Station, they made an experiment which proved that the red blood cells（细胞）in the blood of black bears can be used.
On the afternoon of February 15th, the first red blood cell transfusion was given to the giant panda, from 600 ml of black bear blood. Immediately the young panda started to recover.
It was a touching moment at the National Zoo in Washington, US: tens of thousands of people from all over the country, and even the world, came to say goodbye to one of the area's most popular residents (居民), BaoBao—a 3-year-old panda.
BaoBao left for her new home in Chengdu, China on Feb 22. She's the first female panda born in the US and has won the hearts of many Americans. A number of goodbye events were held, including a dumpling party and cake feedings. Information about her flight was even made available online so that people could keep learning about her journey.
It had been decided that BaoBao must return to China according to an agreement between China and the US. In fact, most pandas around the world are borrowed from China and baby pandas born abroad will be sent back before they're four.
Being native to China and loved around the world, the cute black-and-white animals have played an important role in the country's diplomacy (外交). This is known as "Panda Diplomacy". Animal diplomacy dates back to the Tang Dynasty (唐朝), when Empress Wu Zetian sent a pair of pandas to the Japanese emperor. China restarted panda diplomacy in the 1950s when China sent two pandas to the Moscow Zoo. By 1982, China had given 23 pandas to nine different countries. The most famous was China's gift of two pandas, Ling-Ling and Xing-Xing, to the US in 1972 after President Richard Nixon's visit to China.
However, since early 1980s, China has stopped giving away pandas for free because their number is becoming smaller. For example, zoos in the US, UK and France "rent" pandas from China. The money they pay for the pandas, which are from tens of thousands to millions of US dollars, was used to protect and breed (繁育) the endangered animals.
Besides pandas, elephants and dogs have also been given as diplomatic gifts. In 1953, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sent Chairman Mao Zedong two Asian elephants as gifts as a symbol of the friendship between the two countries.
