Baby panda becomes member on celebrity list

This is the Southeast Asia’s most famous zoo after global TV networks turned their lens on a remarkable new born baby; a female panda born at Chiang Mai Zoo, late May. Mum and Dad, Lin Hui and Xuang Xuang, have lived at the northern Thailand zoo for the last six years, under a loan agreement with the Chinese Government that lasts only ten years.

TV cameras from all major channels focused on the tiny tot made all the more famous because it was conceived by artificial insemination and marked a first for the Thai veterinarian team. Thailand joins the US and Japan as the only countries to breed pandas in captivity.

Born 27 May, after six years of almost comical efforts to get the female panda pregnant, the birth surprised even zoo officials. It was all the more fascinating in the context of past efforts by zoo officials to get the two Chinese pandas to mate naturally. Zoo keepers arranged a mock wedding and even showed them porn movies of other pandas mating. It was a dismal failure, until medical science came to the rescue.

Overnight, the baby was a world celebrity and the only sad note was news that within two years the baby panda would have to return to its homeland.

The panda family is the biggest draw at Chiang Mai Zoo, earning a treasure chest in gate fees that have reached an astronomical figure. It takes a football star to attract a fan club of the size the panda family has drawn to the zoo.