Giant pandas returning to U.S. National Zoo
A dozen tourists have been banned for life from China’s Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding for reportedly displaying bad behavior around the animals.
A total of 12 people between the ages of 26 and 61 have been issued lifetime bans from the center, according to a post on the Research Base’s official WeChat account.
The badly behaved visitors were “caught either throwing bamboo shoots, lollipop sticks, cigarettes, eggs or bread and spitting into the outdoor play area of the pandas on different occasions,” read the WeChat post.
The pandas are all fine and healthy, it added.
The Research Base has not publicly identified any of the banned guests or their nationalities. The WeChat post explained that the tourists were not all together – the offenses took place between April and June of this year.
The base, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Chengdu, has detailed visitor instructions on its website.
“Please be mindful of your own and animals’ safety,” reads one note. “Stay quiet and keep clear of animals; littering, spitting, throwing food into the animal activity field and other behaviors threatening animals’ safety are prohibited.”
The advisory goes on to state that breaking these rules can result in “punish[ing] the violators with different degrees of penalties, such as criticizing and educating, banning them from entering the park within one year, banning them from entering the park within five years, or banning them from entering the park for life, and so on.”
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding opened in 1987 in Sichuan province in southwestern China. Its website states that the goal of the center is “to be a world-class research facility, conservation education center and international educational tourism destination.”
The base is designed to re-create the natural habitat of giant pandas, which are native to China.
The extreme measures that scientists partake in to create this environment can include dressing up in panda costumes sprayed with panda urine to “blend in.”
In 2018, the World Wildlife Fund upgraded giant pandas from “endangered” to “vulnerable.” There are an estimated 1,800 pandas living in the wild today.
