How did America fall in love with giant pandas?

1936 On a cold Wednesday, the day before Christmas Eve, a giant panda appeared in new york. Its name is * * *. Two months ago, it was dragged out of its home in the jungle and cried. It took planes and ships, wrapped in blankets and baskets, and walked half a circle around the earth. No panda can survive outside East Asia. A few weeks before his arrival, American newspapers reported every detail and news of his crossing the Pacific Ocean. From the moment * * * was carried into Grand Central Station, reporters immediately blew the news of the first panda in the United States, and the stars clung to his coat. He still clung to ruth harkness, an explorer, born in a famous family and widowed. Without any field experience, she went to China, vowed to end her dead husband's panda hunting, returned triumphantly, and fed * * with a baby bottle full of instant milk. As described by biologist George Beals Schaller in his book The Last Panda, harkness's journey aroused "happy anger" all over the country.

It was the moment when America fell in love with the giant panda. With the rich title "Baby Panda is here, harkness presides over the court in Biltmore Hotel", a breeze of 65,438+February blew in from the open window, "Protect the local climate in Tibet", and the reporters looked at the baby with gaping eyes. According to The Times, they saw three different things: a suckling pig, a lamb and a puppy. It is about 18 inch long and weighs just over 10 pound. This is the first photo of a live panda published in a newspaper.

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This seems to be a modern reaction, cooing, flattering and barking at cute animals-the art of this website is to attract hungry readers with photos of panda cubs-but this is far from the contemporary trend. In the early 20th century, the first panda craze triggered by harkness swept across the United States, and it quickly developed into a cultural phenomenon in the late 1930s. Explorers went to China to catch giant pandas and sold them for a lot of money. The zoo began to hold its own exhibitions, eager to attract people who paid, because they guaranteed that the giant pandas were not bad at all. For example, within six months of his debut, * * * attracted more than 300,000 people to Brookfield Zoo on the outskirts of Chicago. From Helen Keller to al capone, everyone can't help but have a chance to visit a panda.

This story does not begin with * * *, nor does it begin with harkness.

This story begins with armand David, a priest of Laszler in the19th century. From 65438 to 1960s, he preached in China and studied hundreds of birds and animals. 1March 869, it was there that a hunter brought him a red panda's skin. David wrote that westerners have never seen evidence of "black bears and white bears". He arranged to send a skin specimen back to Paris, where it is still preserved, and happily wrote to the French mammal scientist alfons Milne Edwards: "I have never seen this animal in a European museum, it is the most beautiful animal I have ever seen; It may be new to science! " A few years later, Milne Edwards suggested that giant pandas are related to raccoons rather than bears. )

In the decades after David brought the news of giant pandas back to Europe, people still rarely saw giant pandas. Stephen Allee, deputy curator of China painting and calligraphy at friel Art Museum and sackler Art Museum, said that even works of art depicting pandas are rare. Sheller noticed several examples of the last panda: 1908, a botanist named Ernest Wilson noticed "its big dung heap", but could not find their source; British explorer J.W. Brooke claimed that in the same year, his hunting party shot and killed a "mottled bear", but before he could explain more, he was killed by the locals. 19 16, a German zoologist named Hugo vigor bought a cub and died soon after. By 19 19, when the American Museum of Natural History exhibited the first mount specimen, the fact was undeniable: the panda was there, unlike any animals seen in the United States or Europe, the first person who brought the panda to the west would encounter an unpredictable reputation.

Unless they are already famous. 1929 In May, Teddy Roosevelt's sons Cmit and Theodore Jr. became the first westerners to photograph giant pandas. Their hunting, in a Roosevelt-style way, is between sports and science; According to Time magazine, it took them 65,438+00 months to travel through the * * * organized by the Field Museum in India, China and Chicago, and it cost more than 65,438+00,000 dollars. The panda they shot and another panda killed by a local hunter are still on display in the museum today.

The press watched with relish their achievements in hunting. The rooster caught the panda. The Times announced on the front page: "The Maojiaoxiong in the Himalayas was shot by white people for the first time." . After each brother returned to America, he also circled around the victory circle and accepted many interviews about them. "In fact, we are very lucky, because after only four hours of tracking, we found this beast taking a nap at noon," Cmit said, apparently confusing East Asia with Latin America. My brother and I approached carefully, fired at the same time and caught him. We locals refused to bring animals into their village. It seems that the giant panda is one of the little gods. "They even wrote a book, according to the requirements of the public, dragging the giant panda into the water.

From then on, the game began. Many adventurers, including actor douglas fairbanks, gathered in China to look for giant pandas. By 1936, their expedition had led to an unprecedented collection of specimens. About a dozen specimens were exhibited in the museum, but no one took a living panda to the west. Before ruth harkness tried,

* * * In the United States, newspapers did not hesitate to broadcast every shining detail of harkness's trip. 1934, her husband William and Ruth went to China shortly after they got married. He tried to catch a panda, but he was stopped by the license problem. A year later, while waiting for bureaucratic approval in China, William got cancer. Shortly thereafter, he died and never started hunting again. Then harkness decided to realize her husband's dream. "I inherited an expedition. What else can I do?" She later explained that,

There were many scandals in this trip, which delighted the media. Almost all stories about her adventures mentioned Quentin Yang, a 22-year-old China naturalist, with whom he had a secret love affair. Floyd Tangier Smith, a panda hunter who works with her husband, claimed that harkness didn't find this panda cub in the jungle, but bought it from a hunter in China. She and others strongly denied the accusation. Later, when she tried to return to the United States, customs officials detained her; The dispute will be finally settled after the country imposes a tax of $20 on "a dog". When the newspaper has the opportunity to shoot * * *, harkness's story has become a gossip legend.

Harkness sold * * * to Brookfield Zoo on 1937, and a few months after * * * came back, a large number of people were dumbfounded by this animal that they had never seen before. By the end of this century, American zoos will import six more giant pandas: two from brookfield, two from Bronx Zoo and two from St. Louis Zoo. Everyone brought a new round of stupid news reports. 1939 In May, when the second panda arrived at the Bronx Zoo, The Times published a detailed report about the panda's fire in the air: "Bimbo was locked in the back of the pilot's cabin in Kansas City. According to Don Terry, the pilot of the plane and the captain of the panda Thor, he rushed to M.H. Kashin ... "Panda is the most attractive thing in the three zoos; A panda at the Bronx Zoo was even lent out as the headline of the World Expo.

Pandas used to be, and still are, big business. This is why every time a panda dies, the three zoos will look for body double as soon as possible. From the late 1930s to the early 1940s, there was a Monday pattern: the old pandas would be mourned, the zoo would announce the purchase of new pandas, and once the pandas arrived, news reports would break out. The peak of this trend is the Times' report on panda's birthday party: "Little panda, perhaps because his birthday was not noticed, took over the party […] He climbed into the chair, sat on the table and sat on the cake. Then he began to throw cakes at the distinguished guests. However, by the early 1950s, both animals had eaten a little.

The Cold War made it difficult for zoos to import animals from China. The number of giant pandas in the United States has been reduced to zero: Su Lin and two other giant pandas, Meimei and Meilan, died at Brookfield Zoo; Four of the Bronx Zoo died; St. Louis Zoo recently mourned the last one, Paopei. According to The Times,1In May 1958, when a giant panda was listed in Beiping, the Federation made it clear that it was not allowed in the United States: "The purpose of the ban is to refuse to provide US dollars to China." . Another panda didn't set foot on American soil until 1972, when China gave President Nixon two pandas.

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Some things about this panda aroused people's love for it. Maybe it has something to do with American culture, maybe it's science. Last month, nearly 80 years after she came to the United States, when a new cub was born in the National Zoo, the news seemed to be everywhere. How much has it changed?

At least one thing. As we all know, in the early 20th century, it was difficult to identify the sex of pandas. For many years, experts at Brookfield Zoo always thought Surin was a female animal. It was not until 1938 died that the autopsy concluded that he was male. Veterinarians don't have to worry about making the same mistake when Xiang Mei gave birth last month. They tested their genes before announcing the news. This is a boy.