LONG AIR TRIP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 14 October 1941, Page 3

LONG AIR TRIP

COLLECTING GIFT PANDA INQUIRY ABOUT A KIWI Auckland, Oct. 13. A return journey of about 39,000 miles, mainly by air, from New York to Chungking, China, to take delivery of a gift baby giant panda for the New York Zoological Society, is being made by Mr John Tee-Van, who arrived at Auckland by the Anzac Clipper on Saturday. Special arrangeI inents are being made to havjp the ) animal transported across the Pacific 17 om New Zealand by Clipper. A five- : months-old female, the panda has been : presented to the society by Madame IChiang Kai-shek in recognition of work : done for China by United China Relief. ,an American organisation. The panda is a species fairly closely related to the raccoon and is rare outside China, and consequently highly prized as a zoo exhibit. About 3001 b li. weight and standing 2ift when full grown, it is found only on high mountains in a limited range of about 350 miles by 150 miles in Western China. One of its most attractive features is its playfulness, which it retains in adult life. The panda is cream and black in colour and feeds almost exclusively on mountain bamboo. Asked on Saturday what would be the value of the animal he was about to collect, Mr Tee-Van said that as it was a gift he would not like to state a figure, “but it is worth my society’s while to send me halfway round the world, mainly by air, to get it.” “Because 1 was coming this route, my organisation also wondered if I could make arrangements to procure some of the rarer animals and birds of Australia and New Zealand.” said Mr Tee-Van in referring to a report that he hoped to get a kiwi from New Zea- [ land and a duck-billed platypus from I Australia. No arrangements had yet I been made, but he would make inquiries. OBJECTION TO GIFT KIWI FROM DOMINION The hope that a kiwi will not be made available for the New York Zoological Society is exoressed by the Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand in a statement dealing with an incidental purpose of the tour of Mr John Tec-Van. The possibility of a gift being made “must be very unpleasant for many New Zealanders who had hoped that no more gifts of protected birds or tbeir skins would be made to zoos or museums after New' Zealand’s deplorable experience of the expedition sent cut by the American Museum of j Natural Science, known as the Whit- j ney Expedition." the statement adds, j “In the case of the kiwi, a noctural I bird, it can be safely predicted that its j life under unnatural conditions overseas would not be happy.” The society states that the Do- ! minion’s birds, especially rare species, j had been subjected far too much in I the past to the crazes of collectors. The I lime had surely come when the statu- | lory protection of birds such as the j kiwi should be actual protection with- i ant exception.— P.A. ]