Panda-monium : Zoos: Babbitt allows San Diego facility to import two pandas from China. Interior secretary says research and breeding program may be vital to survival of the endangered species.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, reversing an earlier decision, announced Saturday that the San Diego Zoo will be permitted to import two giant pandas from China and that a plan will soon be unveiled allowing other American zoos to import the charismatic but endangered mammals.

Babbitt said he became convinced that the research on panda communication and panda reproduction to be done at the San Diego Zoo could be vital to the survival of the panda in its native land, where its numbers have dwindled to fewer than a thousand.

The woolly, lumbering mammals with the fetching black circles around their eyes have been the most popular animals ever brought to American zoos, leading to the term panda-monium to describe the public excitement engendered by their mysterious, almost mystic, appeal.

But the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service has refused in recent years to approve import applications under the Endangered Species Act. As previous loan agreements lapsed, pandas were returned to China, and now only one American zoo, the National Zoo in Washington, has a panda, despite a continuing clamor for pandas among U.S. zoo visitors.

Conservationists, including some panda experts, had argued that American zoos were exploiting the panda to increase attendance and might be hastening its demise by encouraging the Chinese to capture the animals and rent them to zoos for display.

The plan mentioned by Babbitt and other officials at a news conference at the San Diego Zoo would permit panda importation only as part of a top-flight, closely monitored program of research, conservation and breeding.

The plan, being developed with the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, would also take the profit out of pandas by requiring that any revenue from increased attendance or souvenir sales be spent either on panda habitat preservation in China or on other projects to aid endangered species. Zoos wanting pandas would be required to let the government audit their books, to which the San Diego Zoo has already agreed.

The politics of pandas have included delicate negotiations between officials in Washington and Beijing over just how the Chinese plan to spend the $1 million a year that the San Diego Zoo is paying to import the pandas. There has also been presidential interest.

Last spring, President Clinton and his family, while vacationing in Coronado, were given a VIP tour of the zoo’s Wild Animal Park. Clinton asked his guide, “Do you have your pandas yet?”

Babbitt said Clinton later “took me aside at a Cabinet meeting and said, ‘What are you doing to make this (panda application) work in San Diego?’ ” Babbitt added jokingly, “That, of course, had no impact on my decision to be here today.”

Under the application approved by Babbitt, the San Diego Zoo will receive a 13-year-old male, Shi Shi, and a 3-year-old female, Bai Yun, possibly by the spring so they can be ready for public display during the peak summer months. The two now live at a panda preserve in Wolong in the mountainous Sichuan Province.

The agreement is for 12 years, with renegotiation every three years. The zoo will contribute $1 million a year to panda habitat preservation and increase its payments in the event any offspring are born in San Diego, although those progeny will be sent to China when the agreement ends.

Sydney Butler, executive director of the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, said he envisions, once the overall panda plan is adopted by the Department of the Interior, that an additional 10 to 15 pandas could be imported in the next decade for long-term loans.

All import applications would be routed through the association rather than zoos submitting competing requests. Twenty institutional members of the association have been involved in working with the Fish & Wildlife Service on a panda plan and could be candidates to receive pandas.

Among them are zoos in San Francisco; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Ft. Worth; Memphis; St. Louis; Toronto; Atlanta; Milwaukee; Philadelphia and Lincoln Park in Chicago. Other institutions interested in pandas are Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., and Marine World/Africa USA in Vallejo, Calif.

Pandas have been an enormous draw since the first one was brought to an American zoo in 1937. Something about the stuffed, teddy-bear appearance makes them more popular than even such zoo favorites as lions, gorillas and elephants.

“Pandas are in a league by themselves,” said Marshall P. Jones Jr., assistant director of the Fish & Wildlife Service. “Something about the pandas gives off a save-me message,” Butler said.

Before making his decision, Babbitt said he paid an unannounced visit to the San Diego Zoo several weeks ago, paying his entrance fee and wandering the grounds like any other zoo patron. He said he came away impressed.

In September, 1993, Babbitt had tentatively rejected the zoo’s import application, stunning zoo officials, who had spent $1 million on his-and-her enclosures for the pandas and were expecting the same kind of fanfare that occurred when the zoo had two pandas for 200 days in 1987 and 1988. One estimate is that the zoo grossed an additional $4 million in tickets and trinket sales during the pandas’ visit.

After Babbitt’s tentative decision about San Diego, Fish & Wildlife slapped a moratorium on import applications until a national plan was developed.

To satisfy Babbitt’s concerns, San Diego Zoo officials supplied increased documentation about their proposed scientific research, switched the emphasis from breeding to research, and changed females.

The initial application had sought the female Shun-Shun, who was born in the wild. But Fish & Wildlife officials, who report to Babbitt, were unconvinced by the Chinese explanation that Shun-Shun had been captured so she could receive medical attention and not just so she could be exported.

The application was shifted to Bai Yun, who was born in captivity. The male, Shi Shi, was born in the wild but was captured after being critically injured in a fight with another panda. His nose still shows the scars.

Zoo officials say Bai Yun is three years from sexual maturity so any mating will have to wait. Even then, it will be a tricky business.

Female pandas only come into heat one day a year, often for no more than a long afternoon. They also can be extremely grouchy and attack males who approach. Male pandas often seem not to know how to mount a female.

The San Diego Zoo, which has a Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, has had luck with several other species where captive breeding is dicey.

“I always thought of San Diego as a city with a romantic environment,” Babbitt said. “I hope the San Diego Zoo will live up to that reputation.”