When it comes to being cute and cherishing, there is no national treasure of any country that can compare to our country's panda "ambassadors". They are not only popular in China, but also "sweet pastries" when they go abroad.

But the delicacy of panda cubs has also made many countries "unreachable", and Canada took the lead in "surrendering".

At the beginning of 2022, Canada announced that it would send "Er Shun" and "Da Mao" living in Canada to their hometown ahead of schedule. According to the agreement between the two parties, "Er Shun" and "Da Mao" should have returned to China in 2023. Netizens reported the news. They joked that "Canada really can't afford it".

Are giant pandas really so difficult to raise? How much does it cost to feed a baby panda? Why does Canada wave and say it can't afford it?

The Giant Panda's National Treasure Promotion

In fact, the standard name of the panda at the beginning was called Panda Bear, which means that the face is like a cat but the body is like a bear. The giant panda is one of the oldest species in China, and as a national treasure has extraordinary political significance.

The earliest giant panda discovered in China was located in Lufeng, Yunnan, about 8 million years ago, about the late Miocene.

Giant pandas can be called "successors" in the animal kingdom. From their birth and reproduction to the present, all the species that survived at the same time as them have gone to complete extinction, such as the familiar saber-toothed tiger, mammoth, short-faced bear and so on.

The fact that giant pandas have survived to this day cannot be said to be a miracle.

Before the giant panda became a national treasure, it can be said that it was "deserved", so it is "deserving of its name" to "stand out" and become China's national treasure.

The first time pandas ushered in their disaster was about 3 million years ago, when the earth ushered in a drop in temperature, a large number of plants and a sharp decrease in food, which put the carnivorous pandas in an "embarrassing situation".

So they started to "find a different way" and learn to eat some plants and "lucky" to escape the disaster.

Eight or seven thousand years ago, people with global warming and severe food shortage turned their "evil" eyes to pandas. Because giant pandas are not as dangerous as other wild beasts and have been massacred, the number of "poor" giant pandas has decreased dramatically .

The pandas that were originally all over Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan could only be forced to hide in deep mountains such as Sichuan to survive.

Until now, the giant panda was officially listed as a national first-class protected animal in 1988, and it was officially designated as a national treasure in 1992. The giant panda "just and bright" who "hiding in Tibet" has opened its "road of counterattack".

Diplomat

Panda diplomacy is a unique diplomatic method in China. As a "diplomat", giant pandas can be said to have achieved remarkable results. Many pandas have been treated as state guests abroad, and being able to rent a panda also represents a major cooperation agreement between the two sides.

And panda diplomacy can be traced back even earlier. Japan can be described as China's biggest "fan". As early as the first year of the Tang Dynasty, in 685 AD, Wu Zetian presented two pandas and 70 panda skins to Japan.

China earns hundreds of millions a year just by leasing giant pandas, but every year there are still many countries "scrambling" to apply.

In 1972, Nixon visited China and visited the Beijing Zoo. At that time, he was hit by the baby panda and expressed his hope to get Chinese giant pandas.

As a result, the giant pandas Lingling and Xingxing arrived at the Washington Zoo, and the streets were crowded for a while, triggering the first wave of "panda craze" in the United States.

But the application is not "smooth", and "Shen Mao" is comparable to the Olympic bid. For example, the Netherlands has applied for three prime ministers for 16 years, and finally borrowed two "black sesame dumplings" in 2015, and spent 51.16 million to build a panda pavilion with a total area of ​​9,000 square meters for giant pandas. The style is based on the Chinese royal family. industrial design.

However, compared with Denmark, it is still "insignificant". The Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark has invested a huge sum of 150 million to design the panda house with Tai Chi Yin-Yang. The baby panda can be said to be "going abroad and ascending the throne".

Canada is suffering

Canada has experienced 40 years of "long-distance running", and it has been through ups and downs to get two giant panda cubs "Er Shun" and "Da Mao".

During the period, I wanted to name the giant panda after Riceman, and Canada's love for giant pandas is "obvious".

But "the sky didn't work out". The Calgary Zoo, where the giant pandas "Er Shun" and "Da Mao" are located, said that they made a very difficult decision to reluctantly give up the two giant pandas that had been fostered in Canada for ten years. End the trip early and send it back to China.

An adult giant panda weighing 120 kilograms needs to eat about 20 kilograms of bamboo every day, and the market price of bamboo is about 15 to 20 yuan per catty, so the giant panda will spend nearly 150,000 yuan a year on bamboo alone.

Calgary has no bamboo, so it used to rely on bamboo delivered from other cities to satisfy the "picky stomach" of giant pandas.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, there was a shortage of fresh bamboo for giant pandas to eat. On this basis, the zoo was unable to make ends meet and was forced to "bow" to reality.

Through the joint efforts of many parties, two pandas from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and the Chongqing Zoo took a special plane to "go home" in the early morning of November 29, 2020, which was earlier than the planned return time of the giant pandas. more than two years.

Of course, although China and Canada have decided to terminate the cooperation early through friendly consultation, the joy that giant pandas have brought to the Chinese and Canadian people is "indelible".

Under the "friendly diplomacy" of Panda Baby, not only has the giant panda protection cause received more attention and support, but also the exchanges and cooperation in the field of wildlife protection and the due contribution to the global biodiversity protection cause. A priceless treasure".