TOKYO: Giant pandas at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo still boast strong popularity among people of all ages in Japan 50 years after the arrival of the first pandas in the country.

Shortly after then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka and then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai signed a Japan-China joint communique on Sept. 19, 1972, an announcement was made that the Chinese side would send two giant pandas to celebrate the normalization of bilateral ties.

While the zoo in the Japanese capital’s Taito Ward hastily started preparations to receive the pandas, only one member of the zoo’s staff had seen the animal before.

Workers at the zoo “didn’t even know what kind of animal a giant panda was, let alone how to take care of it,” Naoya Ohashi, 48, of the zoo said. “They must’ve been worried.”

Former Ueno Zoo-keeper Yoshiaki Sagawa, 75, took care of nine giant pandas at the zoo over the course of 23 years from 1973.

Sagawa was not in charge of pandas when Kang Kang and Lan Lan arrived at the zoo from China on Oct. 28, 1972.

He caught his first glimpse of the two pandas a month later.

Sagawa said that his first impression of the giant pandas was that they were big.

The two pandas created an unprecedented boom in Japan, attracting a record 7.64 million visitors to the zoo in fiscal 1974.

After being assigned to take care of the pandas, Sagawa went through a number of trials and errors to get the two pandas to breed.

Lan Lan suddenly collapsed after mating for the third time. She was then diagnosed with pregnancy toxemia and kidney failure.

Sagawa stayed up for three whole days and nights, nursing Lan Lan to bring her back to health, but she died. An autopsy showed that Lan Lan had been pregnant.

Still regretting this, Sagawa said, “I don’t know what to say.”

Determined not to let this experience go to waste, Sagawa tried artificial insemination for the next panda pair, Fei Fei and Huan Huan.

While the first cub born between the two pandas, named Chu Chu, only lived for two days, Tong Tong and You You were later born through artificial insemination.

Although the zoo had no panda for some time, Ueno Zoo is currently home to five pandas.

“Giant pandas are the face of Ueno Zoo,” Sagawa said, voicing his hopes that pandas will continue to be kept at the zoo.

According to Ueno Zoo, the zoo is on its 166th book of panda keepers’ records, a tradition that has been maintained since the first giant pandas arrived at the zoo.

“While giant pandas were either perceived as the symbol of the normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and China or as a rare animal at first, they are now seen as cute creatures,” said Toshimitsu Doi, 71, former head of Ueno Zoo and current leader of the Panda Protection Institute of Japan.

“I hope that the pandas provide people with the opportunity to think about species conservation and animal protection,” he added.

JIJI Press