Hua Mei

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Panda Bear Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo

Hua Mei ( Chinese  華美 (traditional), Chinese  华美 (simplified), translation: "China / USA"; * August 21, 1999) is a female giant panda . She was born through artificial insemination at the San Diego Zoo and is believed to be the first panda bear to reach adulthood in the United States. Both the birth and the first months of life could be followed worldwide via an Internet webcam at the San Diego Zoo. On August 25, 1999, nurses estimated her weight to be between 110 and 140 grams. At the first weigh-in on September 4, 1999, her weight was 354.4 grams. After 45 days, she was 38.6 cm long and opened her eyes. On December 1, 1999, she was given her name in a solemn ceremony in the presence of the Consul General of the People's Republic of China, which means on the one hand "China / USA" and on the other hand "wonderful / beautiful". Her mother Bai Yun and her father Shi Shi are on loan from the People's Republic of China. After Hua Mei, Bai Yun gave birth to male Mei Sheng (2003), female Su Lin (2005), and female Zhen Zhen (2007), all of whom also reached adulthood.

In February 2004, Hua Mei became the first overseas-born giant panda to return to China. She came to the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province , where she developed well and became a mother herself. Previously, the experiment of video stimulation was used for the first time, in which giant pandas grown in captivity are shown films with their conspecifics during a mating game in order to encourage them to mate themselves. In September 2004, Hua Mei gave birth to twins Hua Ling and Mei Ling. Two more twin births followed in 2005 and 2007.

In 2008, Hua Mei had to be relocated to the Bifengxia Panda Base in Ya'an after the panda facility in the Wolong Nature Reserve was destroyed by the Sichuan earthquake . In July 2009, Hua Mei became the mother of a female. She gave birth to a male in September 2010.

literature

  • Ann Whitehead Nagda: Panda Math: Learning About Subtraction from Hua Mei and Mei Sheng . 2005. ISBN 978-0805076448
  • Joanne Ryder: Little Panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing . 2001. ISBN 978-0689843105

Web links