Pricey pandas put squeeze on zoo finances

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Meet Tai Shan -- child star, chick magnet and one big, bamboo-eating chunk of the National Zoo's budget.

Officials with the four zoos in the United States that house giant pandas -- including Washington's National Zoo -- hope to renegotiate future loan agreements with China. They say the animals are such a drain on finances that it may make more sense to send them back to the communist country after contracts expire.

"They're an expensive animal, absolutely, to have," said John Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Zoo. Holding on to the pandas at such cost isn't a sure thing, he said.

"That's why we felt it important to iterate to the Chinese that the current conditions would not sustain future loan agreements," Mr. Gibbons said.

Under current agreements, the zoos in Atlanta, Memphis, Washington and San Diego each pay more than $1 million a year for what the Chinese government says is a fund to protect endangered animals. In addition, China charges the zoos a one-time fee of about $600,000 each time a panda cub, such as Tai Shan, is born.

Though most of the money is supposed to go toward panda conservation in China, the U.S. zoo officials say the loan fees and money required for the animals' upkeep here siphons funds from other species that also need protection.

"As far as I know, for a single species, this is more money than any zoo has spent," said Dennis W. Kelly, chief executive of Zoo Atlanta, whose contract for two adult pandas expires in 2009. "For us, it's a matter of resource allocation. For many zoos to sustain that commitment indefinitely, it would unbalance our global conservation efforts."

The San Diego Zoo's contract with China is the first to expire, in 2008. The National Zoo's contract to house two adult pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, expires in 2010. Panda cub Tai Shan, now 7 months old, is slated to be sent to China when he is 2 years old.

Mr. Gibbons said the National Zoo has joined with the three other zoos to open an informal dialogue with China regarding a new contract. They hope a less-expensive agreement can be reached so that Mei Xiang and Tian Tian perhaps could make Washington their permanent home.

"We know we would not be able to undertake any future loan agreement for giant pandas under the current conditions," Mr. Gibbons said. "That is not to say the National Zoo would not still be involved in our conservation and science efforts with the species. ... We will continue our work with giant pandas, whether they are here in the future or not."