National Zoo Will Pamper New Pandas

The once-spartan outdoor panda yard at the National Zoo is now a lush garden. It offers air-conditioned rock caves, shallow ponds, live trees for shade, dead ones for climbing--even a sand wallow for those occasions when an animal just has to get dirty.

Soon, there will also be 27 cameras to monitor every move of the zoo’s hoped-for pair of giant pandas from China. But there will be no souvenir stands in the viewing area.

“We’re not going to commercialize anything down here,” Lucy Spelman, the zoo director, said Thursday while inspecting the work-in-progress. “Whatever we do, we’d keep it simple. The focus is the animal and nothing else.”

That comes close to describing the zoo’s own preoccupation these days, as the staff prepares for the arrival of young male and female pandas. Workers are putting the finishing touches on a $2-million renovation of the panda quarters, and zoo staff members are training volunteers to answer visitors’ questions and monitor panda behavior. Spelman is negotiating with airlines to transport the animals.

Zoo officials signed a 10-year, $10-million agreement with China in April to borrow two captive pandas from the Wolong reserve in western China. They hope the black and white creatures will arrive by year’s end--but first they must satisfy the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which must grant an import permit.

The federal agency has extended the public comment period on the zoo’s application until Oct. 27 and voiced several concerns about it. Wildlife officials question whether the zoo’s agreement with China puts enough emphasis on saving pandas in the wild, the central goal of U.S. panda policy. They also question whether zoo officials have veto power over projects that the Chinese will undertake with the zoo’s $10 million and whether those projects overemphasize infrastructure at the expense of conservation biology.

Replying to concerns about Chinese control, zoo officials said they deliberately chose to work with Chinese officials and scientists, not approach them as adversaries, and wrote a dispute resolution procedure into the panda pact. If that fails, they say, the agreement can be terminated.

“We’re really optimistic that our relationships with the Chinese scientists and educators are growing and expanding,” Spelman said in an interview. “We sincerely believe that will help us ensure that the project money goes to help giant pandas. That must be a collaborative effort or it won’t work in the long run.”

Spelman said in a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service that initially there is an emphasis on infrastructure, but “we will expect that the balance between infrastructure on the one hand and programs and activities on the other will change over subsequent funding cycles.”

“I don’t want to build roads if we don’t need a road,” Spelman said this week. But, she added, if there is no way to get to a panda reserve to assess its conditions and work with its staff, a road may be needed.

Spelman said she is confident the zoo can meet concerns of federal officials and outside groups without rewriting its agreement with China. “We made the best agreement we can,” she said. “We’re happy with it.”

The pandas--Mei Xiang and Tian Tian--would be the zoo’s second experience with the rare animals. The Chinese government gave the zoo a pair of pandas in 1972. The female, Ling-Ling, died in 1992 and the male, Hsing-Hsing, in 1999. The pair had five offspring, but none lived more than a few days. Zoo officials hope the new pair will breed when they come of age in several years.

In the meantime, renovation of the panda quarters is nearly done. Late this week, workers were hammering an outdoor walkway, polishing a new floor inside the Panda House and placing bamboo plants in pots in the yard.

The panda building’s roof has been replaced and mechanical systems overhauled. The three indoor panda chambers are painted with panoramic murals of the misty mountains and evergreens of the animals’ native environment. Rocky climbing structures were installed, with sand and waterfalls to come.

The luxuriant outdoor exhibit areas include a water-mister next to one rocky cave, and a fog-making spout next to another, to simulate conditions in the Chinese mountain forests, where only a thousand of the rare animals are believed to live.

As Spelman walked around the panda yard this week, she repeatedly mentioned how she is looking forward to seeing the young animals roll in the sand, climb the trees, sit on top of the caves and take a dip in the ponds.

“I’ve told the staff, ‘If you can’t find me, I’m here,’ ” Spelman said. “It’s a great place to hang out.”