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Beijing shortlists pandas for Taiwan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-13 11:41
The Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council on Thursday presented
pictures and resumes of 11 pandas in the running to be sent as a gift across the
strait.
A list of 23 of the endangered animals was whittled down to 11 and the lucky
winners, a boy and a girl, will be picked for their looks as well as
"psychological health," officials said.
The successful candidates will be the two which "most closely represent the
character of China's 1.3 billion population," an official said.
The dramatic announcement of the shortlist was shown live on state
television. Number 13, for instance, was listed as "loves to climb trees" and
pictures showed the candidates sitting coyly, resting or happily chomping on
bamboo shoots.
Resumes included their weights, ages and lineage.
"We are very, very careful in choosing these pandas," one of the officials
said.
The panda offer was made at the end of a historic visit to the mainland by
Lien Chan, who heads Taiwan's Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party.
Whether the pandas ever reach Taiwan is ultimately up to the Taiwan
authorities.
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found
only in China. An estimated 1,000 live in southwest Sichuan province and
northwestern Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.
Statistics from the State Forestry Administration released last year show the
number of pandas in the wild in China has risen by more than 40 percent from
1,110 in the 1980s to 1,590, while a total of 161 are in captive breeding
programs worldwide.
The mainland has offered pandas to Taiwan several times in the past, but they
have been turned down, in part, it has said, because the climate is
unsuitable.
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