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American Morning
Two Panda Superstars Have Been on Public Display for Past Year and Appear No Worse For Wear
Aired January 10, 2002 - 08:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Only in the morning would we go from politics to pandas. You're about to meet two superstars who've been on public display for the past year and appear no worse for the wear. You may recall that last January these two pandas, Teon-Teon (ph) and Mishang (ph) made their debut at Washington's National Zoo. They've been shining stars ever since and this morning we're going to wish them a happy anniversary and also talk to the Director of the National Zoo, Dr. Lucy Spelman. Thanks very much for joining us this morning.
DR. LUCY SPELMAN, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL ZOO: Good morning.
COOPER: Well you've got the pandas right behind you there. What ...
SPELMAN: Yes, they're eating up a storm.
COOPER: How has the last year been for the pandas? Are they a breeding age? I mean I think they're four and four and a half. Is that - what age does a panda have a baby?
SPELMAN: Well they're still young. You know they are just - Mishang is three and a half; Teon-Teon is four and a half. So usually six, seven years of age, but you know this is one of the things we really don't know yet about giant pandas. When are they mature and what is their behavior as they age and that's one of the things we're studying. So while we're really celebrating them, we're also studying them and it's all designed to try to help protect them in the wild.
COOPER: About a year ago when you got these pandas, there was some controversy, because you're paying additionally $1 million a year to lease these pandas from China - I think you have a 10-year lease. Has it paid off? It's a lot of money.
SPELMAN: Well actually what we're doing is investing in the future of the wild giant panda. There are only about 1,000 giant pandas left in China, and I've been to China twice in the last year just to understand better the nature reserve system there and what those reserves need, and really the National Zoo, we're not working in a vacuum here. We're working with a lot of other organizations to try help promote the preservation of the habitat for the giant panda and part of that is we need to learn more about pandas. So actually I'm really, really proud of the effort. I think it's been a really good year. We have a lot of work to do, but we've learned a lot so far, which is really good.
COOPER: Have the pandas brought a lot of people to the zoo in Washington?
SPELMAN: Absolutely. They've been great. We - I mean they've adopted very well. They eat, sleep and play - you can see they're doing their eating routine here. We've had almost three million people to the zoo, and I think a lot of our visitors and I think a lot of our visitors do understand that even though the animals themselves are amazing, it's really the effort to save them in the wild that matters more.
COOPER: You mentioned that the money that you paid to lease these pandas go - it's supposed to go to conservation efforts in China. Are you pretty secure that the money is actually going to where it's supposed to go?
SPELMAN: Yes. There are 33 nature reserves designated for the giant panda in China. Only a handful of them have what they need to function as a reserve. That means that some of the more remote areas where there are giant pandas, the people who work in those reserves, they have no equipment; they have no places to work out of; they have no boundaries marked on the reserve; and so our loan money is actually part of a much larger effort on the part of our colleagues in China to develop a nature reserve system and of course that can't be done without financial support, and we also have the guidance of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, other organizations like World Wildlife Fund. So it's a really coordinated effort. I'm really, really optimistic. It's really kind of now or never for this species.
COOPER: All right, Doctor, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Good anniversary - happy anniversary to the pandas. Please extend our congratulations. And still to come this morning ...
SPELMAN: Well come visit.
COOPER: We will. All right.
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