Hahn’s China Visit Yields Golden Monkeys for L.A. Zoo

Los Angeles will become the first city in the United States to exhibit a pair of endangered golden monkeys from China, if not the hoped-for giant pandas, under an agreement reached today between Mayor James K. Hahn and Chinese officials.

Chen Runsheng, secretary general of the China Wildlife Conservation Assn., said he hoped that the monkeys would breed at the Los Angeles Zoo, and a smiling Hahn said he also hoped for “a successful and romantic stay.”

The mayor, touring Asia to promote business and tourism at home, hopes to secure an agreement allowing a pair of giant pandas to come to the Los Angeles Zoo. But officials familiar with the process said broaching that subject early in the visit is frowned upon by Chinese officials, who prefer to first develop relationships and trust.

At a ceremony today, Hahn sidestepped the question.

“Our efforts are not to secure the pandas in the Los Angeles Zoo,” he said, “but to secure their place in their natural habitat. Our goal is to begin the process ... with the ultimate goal of helping the pandas survive.”

Hahn signed an agreement to open discussions with the Chinese government on potential projects involving research, personnel training and funding support for conservation of endangered wildlife in China. He also said the Los Angeles Zoo would create a cultural exhibit to educate visitors about China.

Runsheng avoided any promises about pandas.

“The panda is a shared emotion in the international community,” he said. “It may not be very realistic or within the ability of the China Wildlife Conservation Assn. to provide a panda to you.”

The mayor’s two-day stop in Beijing is his second on a 10-day trip to Asia. He is traveling with other city officials and a delegation of Los Angeles business executives to boost tourism, negotiate agreements with airline and shipping line executives, and open doors for local companies in Asia. It is the mayor’s first major overseas trade mission.

Though the trip consists mostly of meetings with Asian business officials and some government leaders, the mayor is trying to find a little time to be a tourist. He is expected to visit local sites today.

He is being treated, however, like visiting royalty, whisked about in black cars with tinted windows as his delegation follows in shuttle buses.

He will meet late today with other Beijing officials to discuss construction projects and business opportunities for Los Angeles companies. With him are executives from some of the city’s largest engineering and architectural firms.

The mayor may well be more successful in those areas than he is in obtaining pandas, several people said.

It is a long, political process that may end up with Los Angeles receiving only the golden monkeys, which have striking blue faces and golden hair. About 15,000 golden monkeys remain in the wild of China.

The mayor, who brought two zoo officials to Beijing, has said he thinks that Los Angeles would be a natural place for giant pandas, because it has a large Chinese community and is a gateway city for Asian tourists. Each year, more than 1.4 million people visit the Griffith Park zoo, which has more than 1,200 animals from around the world.

But the mayor has a long way to go before he will learn if he will succeed. Others, including the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas and the Memphis Zoo, are ahead of him on planning and political lobbying.

It would cost Los Angeles tens of millions of dollars to borrow pandas from the Chinese government. The zoo would need a multimillion-dollar panda exhibit, and the city would need to pledge millions more to conservation efforts in China.

The city also would need to meet complex criteria established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for issuing the import and export permits. The city also must have a research project that would benefit the wild panda population in China, which numbers about 1,000. Several hundred more live in captivity. Just three zoos in the United States have pandas: the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.; the San Diego Zoo; and Zoo Atlanta.

Because the animals are so rare, the Chinese and U.S. governments have agreed to the loan program, with the understanding that any offspring are to be returned to China by their third birthday.

In other areas, the mayor said he signed agreements with Korean tourism officials last weekend to encourage more Koreans to visit Los Angeles.