Talking Animals: New York Times reporter discusses her extraordinary exposé on China’s Panda Program

Share
Photo credits to The New York Times

Mara Hvistendahl, a The New York Times reporter who wrote “The Panda Factories”, an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism probing the impact of China’s gambit nearly 30 years ago to send pandas to zoos in other countries, hoping the visiting animals would breed, ultimately resulting in pandas that could be returned to the wild–recounts the genesis of the story.

 

On the path to revealing a raft of important information, “The Panda Factories” presents a fundamental fiction about the “conservation” efforts that many zoos tout: It’s baloney—animals born at zoos are rarely, or never, released into the wild.

 

We discuss how this is a core element of the piece, Hvistendahl explaining how, over the course of her reporting, not only did the conservation outcome of the panda program fail to materialize, but widened out into something more nefarious and mercenary.

 

I raised the notion of certain animals at zoos functioning as marquee attractions, noting that for many zoos–for many years–elephants served that role.

 

But in the last generation or so, the zoo industry has had something of a reckoning regarding displaying elephants, with multiple zoos realizing that’s no way for elephants to live, and sending their elephants to sanctuaries. (It happened again this week: the Oakland Zoo, despite having a relatively large and lauded elephant habitat, sent its elephant, Osh, to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.)

 

Hvistendahl responds to my inquiry about whether she foresees a time where there might be a similar reckoning whereby zoos re-assess the pros and cons of making deals to exhibit pandas.

 

On the subject of “making deals,” and how much of the panda picture appears to be characterized by a “money talks” ethos, at all levels,

Hvistendahl addresses the fee zoos pay for the right to exhibit a pair of pandas for a year ($1.1 million), the additional dough charged if that pair has a cub ($600k), ranging to the bonuses paid to breeding centers in China for every cub that lives to six months ($1400), as well as the esoteric remuneration for “special achievements” ($7050).

 

With so much cash at stake for the birth of baby pandas, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that artificial insemination has become central to the panda program. But it is disturbing, with the procedure sometimes carried out in sloppy fashion, and on occasion, it was downright painful for the pandas, as detailed in Hvistendahl’s piece and discussed in our conversation.

 

Listen Here:

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

A Memoir In Essays.  A Broken Informational Landscape.

Steve Wasserman is as charming as his eloquent writing, he’s...

‘Tis the season – for flu and COVID vaccinations

COVID-19 might have left the headlines, but it hasn’t stopped...

migrant ICE
Florida immigrants are fearful after Trump promises ‘largest deportation program in history’

Listen: President-elect Donald Trump says he will enforce the largest...

A man in a white long sleeve dress shirt, with headphones on his head
Talking Cuba with Al Fox, and Florida maternity homes with Laura C. Morel

After South Florida, Tampa’s population of Cubans is larger than...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Jazz Connections
Player position: