From ambassadors of China’s goodwill to international webcam sensations, the pandas at the National Zoo are used to the white-hot spotlight of celebrity. But now, some in D.C. want to take that fame a step further and elevate them to the lofty heights of becoming the city’s official symbol. Today’s Christian Science Monitor reports (echoing very closely a March 15 article in the Washington Times that we somehow missed) that members of the D.C. City Council are mulling the possibility of naming the giant panda the official animal of Washington, D.C.
With the designation, the District would join the ranks of 44 states across the U.S. that have official animal symbols. While there are many in D.C. who would not be averse to seeing Butterstick’s mug splashed across a variety of official documents, not all council members are on the ‘Stick bandwagon:
The district’s mayor, Anthony Williams, finishes his final term in office this summer and has said he is open to all suggestions regarding a symbol.
But council member Sharon Ambrose thinks the official animal should be the bald eagle. “The panda should not be [the official animal],” Ms. Ambrose says. “We should have an animal that is native. We should have an animal that is an American.”
The Monitor correctly points out that the recently-named official fruit, the cherry, comes from trees that are not native to D.C., but rather a gift from Japan. However, the guidelines council chair Linda Cropp provided to the students searching for a candidate for the District’s official fruit did not specify that the potential symbol had to be native to the region, but rather should be considered “because of its abundance in the jurisdiction, its popularity in the jurisdiction, or for its symbolic meaning.”
It’s no secret where DCist’s heart resides. If we were a government entity, we would have picked Butterstick nearly a year ago. But we open the floor to you — which animal do you think would best represent the District?
Butterstick image posted to DCist photos by Flickr user Peter F. Martin.
