Japan Zoo Welcomes China Panda, Cites Budget

By SACHIKO SAKAMAKI, Bloomberg News
May 8, 2008

TOKYO — Tokyo's Ueno Zoo said China's offer to send a pair of giant pandas as a friendship gesture may constrain its budget unless the government provides additional funds.

Ueno accepted Japan's first two giant pandas from China in October 1972, a month after the two nations normalized ties. Oji Zoo in western Japan's Kobe pays $1 million a year for its pair of giant pandas, a spokesman for Ueno Zoo, Hidemasa Hori, said.

"We welcome pandas," Mr. Hori said in a telephone interview yesterday. But "who is going to pay? We cannot shoulder the cost from our regular budget."

President Hu of China made the offer at a Tokyo dinner last night with Japan's prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, at the start of a state visit, the first by the nation's leader in a decade. The pandas would be loaned to Japan for a fee to comply with an international treaty regarding endangered species.

Ling Ling, the only panda that had been on show in Ueno, died April 30. The zoo received more than 10,000 messages from the general public expressing their sorrow, as well as eight to 10 calls a day from people protesting the practice of renting the giant animals, Mr. Hori said.

"We don't know yet if China's offer will cost money or how much," the Tokyo Metropolitan Government official in charge of zoos, Kazuomi Nishikiori, said. "We'll have to find out details and request a budget accordingly, which must be approved by the assembly." The municipal government spent $52 million in 2006 to operate four zoos, he said.

China "loans out" giant pandas under the international treaty and receives money from recipient nations as research funds to protect the endangered animals.

"We've decided to lend a pair of pandas to Ueno Zoo and conduct joint research as an expression of friendship between the Chinese and Japanese peoples," Mr. Hu said yesterday at a joint press briefing in Tokyo with Fukuda.

[A strong earthquake struck off the coast of Japan early Tuesday, the national Meteorological Agency said, waking up people 100 miles away in Tokyo, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

Two people suffered minor injuries, public television broadcaster NHK reported. There were no other immediate reports of injuries or damage from the magnitude 6.8 earthquake, NHK said.]