Earthquake update #3: Pandas

Earlier I mentioned reassuring first reports that the staff of the Wolong panda reserve, which was very close to the epicenter of last week's earthquake, had escaped unharmed, along with their 60+ animals. The reports seem to have been prematurely cheering. The full extent of what has happened in Wolong, as in much of the rest of Sichuan province, is not yet clear. But Pandas International, the US-based group that I mentioned in my article last year about the panda reserve, is amassing information from the Wolong area indicating that buildings, people, and pandas probably all have suffered considerable damage. It would be remarkable if it were otherwise, considering how close to the quake center the reserve is -- and what the buildings under construction looked like when my wife and I visited last summer: Panda International's latest reports also indicate that three of the reserve's pandas are missing. To put this in perspective: so far, no panda raised in captivity has ever survived in the wild. Also, by the most generous estimates, the world's total population of giant pandas, captive and wild, is well under 2,000. If the number of missing Chinese people were proportional to the number of missing pandas, some two million people would be unaccounted for. I previously posted various pictures of the animals at the reserve. In light of the news that some or many of the staff members at the reserve may be killed or missing, here is a glimpse of what some of them looked like last year. I should probably feel this way about people in every foreign country, but (as stated earlier) the truth is I mainly feel it about China; while the throngs of humanity are overwhelming, the people are vividly individual. Those at the reserve, many of whom I remember, and those in surrounding cities and schools we met. About donations: I don't know enough about the practices of Chinese-based charities to be confident in any recommendation about good places to give. (It has been hard to go wrong with Oxfam over the years.) I am looking into this and will report further. In the meantime, I am confident enough about the work of Pandas International to say that they have done important, worthy work and deserve support. Not to the exclusion of helping people, obviously, but as an important part of China's and the world's heritage.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2008/05/earthquake-update-3-pandas/8047/