Pambassador @ Zoo Madrid – day 4
November 30, 2010: day 4 in Madrid. The cubs were enjoying their wooden crib. They seem to enjoy the extra space and they are starting to crawl a little around in the crib. You can see they are growing up. It is amazing how fast panda cubs grow. When panda cubs are born, they are pink, weigh only 150 grams and you could hold them in the palm of your hand. Today they really look like a small panda. Now they can start to crawl around and soon they can move much more…
Here you can see Yuan Bo & Chen Min work with the cubs. Yuan Bo is weighing cub B and Chen Min is helping the cubs to defecate.
Bing Xing was very interested when keeper Yuan Bo cleaned the new bamboo delivery. Later he realized that there was plenty of his favorite bamboo in his enclosure… Inside we could see him enjoying his snack bowl. This bowl contains cookies made for monkeys who only eat leaves. Bing Xing and Hua Zuiba like this very much and it replaces the panda cake they receive in Chengdu. When he came outside again, he searched for the pieces of apple that the keepers had hidden. In the afternoon he was sleeping inside on his platform.
Cub A stayed in the crib in the afternoon. There I had the chance to meet Jesús Fernández, director of the Zoological department of Parques Reunidos. This Spanish group of 69 parks (theme or amusement parks, nature and animal parks, water parks, family entertainment centres and cable cars) around the world owns Zoo Madrid. Jesús Fernández had received an e-mail about my visit from Dr. Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and he wanted to meet the Pambassador that was visiting his zoo. We had a nice talk about modern zoos, their role in conservation and pandas. I think Zoo Madrid is an example of for many zoological institutions in the world. It is a beautiful green zoo with lots of endangered animals. They combine the needs of the animals with those of the visitors. We also talked about Queen Sofia of Spain and her interest in animal conservation. She visited the cubs when they were 2 months old and she played an important role in the arrival of pandas Shao Shao & Chang Chang in 1978 and Bing Xing & Hua Zuiba. At this time, only 2 people that are not Zoo Madrid staff have been inside with the cubs, Queen Sofia and me… Moments like these make me realize again how lucky all 12 Pambassadors have been…
Cub B was being nursed by Hua Zuiba. I was there when Hua Zuiba became hungry. You can see how she leaves the cub at the other side of the room, asking for food. Chen Min had to catch the baby while Hua Zuiba was eating. The keeper weighed the cub, to see if he has eaten lots of mother milk.
The cubs get a bottle of milk from their keepers in the morning and around midnight. This milk consists of milk for human babies and milk for dog puppies.
Tomorrow is my last day in Madrid. Grtz Pambassador Jeroen Jacobs
