If you’re anything like us, you’ve been enjoying bimonthly “FONZ Flash” emails from the zoo ever since you coughed up the money for a one-year membership just to get primo Butterstick viewing tickets last summer. It’s nice to hear about upcoming lectures, new exhibits and the comings-and-goings of the animals in the collection.
But yesterday’s newsletter contained some… disconcerting news (which we were shocked to find made the rounds last week — without spurring outrage). As you are no doubt aware from the zoo’s blog dedicated to the subject, it’s almost panda breeding season. Given the animals’ frankly laughable commitment to furthering their species, zoologists are taking things into their own hands and preparing to artificially inseminate Mei Xiang once she reaches her most fertile point.
So far so good. But who’s going to be the panda’s daddy? Here’s where everything goes horribly wrong:
Zoo scientists determined that a cub resulting from semen from Gao Gao, San Diego Zoo’s adult male panda, will help strengthen genetic variability among zoo pandas more than semen from Tian Tian, the National Zoo’s adult male panda.
What!? Look, we don’t know how many palms San Diego had to grease to get these so-called “scientists” to hand daddy-duties over to Gao Gao, but it’s perfectly clear that the fix is in. Ever since the birth of their ridiculous also-ran cub it’s been clear that San Diego is intent on stealing our panda thunder. Now they’re hoping to undermine us by diluting D.C.’s ursine bloodlines. To hell with that! Gao Gao needs to keep his gametes to himself, “genetic variability” be damned.
At this point you may understandably be asking yourself, “Is it the official editorial position of DCist that the National Zoo should make spiting the city of San Diego the first priority of its panda breeding program? Even if it means that the zoo’s panda population will eventually be reduced to a collection of inbred, hemophiliac idiot bears?” Yes. Yes, that is exactly our position. Get bent, San Diego.
