The Torch frees the future Cadre, too. Surprising discoveries of the juristic talents of panda bears who make decisions based upon sound, smell and temperature.
Leo Lewis, Chengdu
They are the symbol of Sichuan, they are the pride of Sichuan: locals believe they are the very spirit of Sichuan. And now, like the 5 million other residents of the province left homeless and hungry by the earthquake, the giant pandas share the pain of Sichuan.
Today, distressed, displaced and missing vital tonnage of the food they love most, six of the iconic creatures joined the dreadful exodus from the quake zone: the latest unhappy refugees whom the region can no longer support.
Loaded into trucks, the six pandas were taken to a reserve near the city of Ya’an, some 120 miles away from the worst-hit areas.
Another eight of their kind - possibly badly traumatised by the quake and its aftershocks - made a more glamorous exit from their mountain home. They were shuttled off from Sichuan to Beijing in a special flight. For them awaits the limelight of the August games and the delighted stares of millions of fans.
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“I’m not sure about the mental state of the pandas right now,” said Ye Mingxia of the Beijing Zoo in anticipation of the bears’ arrival in the capital on Saturday, “we will have to observe them carefully after they arrive.”
Famous throughout China, the Wolong breeding centre of Sichuan is home to no fewer than 53 of the rare and endangered giant pandas: visitors travel from around the world to admire them engaged in their two principal pastimes - eating and sleeping.
But since the mighty quake that ripped the region apart on May 12, the much-loved pandas have had extreme difficulty doing either.
The reserve they used to call home sits just 20 miles from the epicentre of the quake that thundered through the surrounding mountains, tearing down lives and livelihoods. More than 50,000 people are dead, thousands of children have been orphaned and China has barely begun rebuilding the shattered province.
Daily trips into the mountains to harvest the bamboo so adored by the pandas have been low on the list of priorities of the few locals that remain in the stricken area. With the reserve now cut off from easy access and usable roads, the bears’ keepers are increasingly worried about the animals’ diet.
Fearing for the wellbeing of Sichuan’s most celebrated quake victims, the Chinese government last week managed to shipped to Wolong an emergency consignment of around 5 tonnes of bamboo and a vast quantity of apples and other feed. But more trips will be tough and without the locally gathered variety of bamboo, the pandas are not happy.
Giant pandas are, even their fondest aficionados admit, notoriously picky eaters. Their absolute favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner is arrow bamboo - and when this bursts into its once-in-a-decade flowering season the black and white bears have been known to starve rather than widen their diet.
And the demands of their stomachs are not small: pandas have digestive systems unsuited to processing bamboo leaves, meaning they have to consume about 12 kilos of the stuff just to extract the nutrition they need.
It remains unclear whether other pandas from Wolong will also be taken elsewhere in coming days. Three other pandas remained missing following the quake, said staff at Wolong, and two were treated for injuries sustained in the violent tremors.
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