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June 12, 2008
China holds funeral for panda killed by earthquake
Nearly a month after China's devastating earthquake, the Wolong Nature Reserve held a funeral Tuesday for a panda that was crushed in the temblor.
Nine-year-old Mao Mao, the mother of five at the breeding center, was found Monday, her body crushed by a wall of her enclosure when the river behind it swelled with landslide debris.
On Tuesday, panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and wheeled her quietly to a patch of ground outside the breeding center where a freshly dug hole waited.
The center's director, Zhang Hemin, stood with his cap in hand and then shoveled in a few spades of dirt.
Mao Mao's keeper, He Changgui, stepped forward, crying, and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave. There were three minutes of silence.
Rest is peace Mao Mao. May your spirit reincarnate free.
Posted by tranism at 12:10 AM | Permalink
Comments
:(
This is so sad. They are not even sure how many pandas living in the wild we may have lost. And the numbers weren't that large to begin with. Hopefully by some cosmic luck, not many.
Posted by: Johnnie at June 12, 2008 4:44 AM
The weird thing is I could have sworn that I read an article saying they had all survived... but with the level of journalism in todays society, its not hard to see how a single one could have been overlooked. Still sad though.
Posted by: Bernard at June 12, 2008 9:32 PM
8•(
half his troop from the reserve have been taken to Beijing as an olympic sideshow.
Posted by: A.J. at June 13, 2008 10:22 AM
So sad.
Posted by: Jim C. at June 14, 2008 1:07 AM