National Zoo via FacebookWell, here’s an anniversary we can all squee over. It was four decades ago today that the People’s Republic of China presented President Richard Nixon with the gift of two giant pandas.
On April 16, 1972, male Hsing-Hsing and female Ling-Ling arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. A few days later they made their public debut at the National Zoo. While the pair were the first giant pandas to reside at the National Zoo, other zoos around the country featured the species as early as 1934, when a three-pound panda cub was presented to Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo. (Alive, that is. In the 1920’s Chicago’s Field Museum displayed a giant panda shot by Kermit Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt Jr., sons of the 26th president.) More panda exhibits followed both in Chicago and at the Bronx Zoo, but by the 1950s, the number of giant pandas on display in the U.S. was dwindling, and by the 1960s people realized the species’ numbers were growing few.
Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling produced five cubs during their time at the National Zoo, though none survived more than a few days. Ling-Ling died in 1992, and Hsing-Hsing in 1999.
Nowadays, though, we of course continue to marvel at Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and the cub they produced in 2005. The official world may know that panda, who now resides in China, as Tai Shan, but on DCist, we’ll always know him as Butterstick.
Photo by Dan Dan the Binary Man
