Taipei zoo’s veteran giant panda Yuanyuan celebrates her 20th birthday
Yuanyuan was born in China and arrived in 2008 with her partner Tuantuan.
With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish Taipei zoo’s senior panda a happy 20th birthday.
Visitors crowded around Yuanyuan’s enclosure to take photos of her with a birthday cake in the shape of the number 20.
Yuanyuan was born in China and arrived in 2008 with her partner Tuantuan.
Danielle Shu, 20, a Brazilian student in Taiwan, said she found online clips of the pandas an enjoyable distraction. “And I just find it really funny and cute,” Shu said.
Giant pandas are native only to China, and Beijing bestows them as a sign of political amity.
China claims the island its own territory, to be annexed by military force if necessary.
Faced with declining habitat and a notoriously low birth rate, giant panda populations have declined to about 1,900 in the mountains of western China, while 600 pandas live in zoos and breeding centres in China and around the world.
