AL KHOR, Qatar –
A pair of giant pandas despatched as a present from China arrived in Qatar on Wednesday forward of subsequent month’s World Cup.
They will take up residence in an indoor enclosure within the desert nation designed to duplicate situations within the dense forests of China’s mountainous Sichuan province. Eight hundred kilograms (almost 1,800 kilos) of contemporary bamboo might be flown in every week to feed them.
Jing Jing, a 4-year-old male weighing 120 kilograms (265 kilos), has been given the Arabic identify Suhail, and 3-year-old feminine Si Hai, at 70 kilograms (154 kilos), has been given the Arabic identify Thuraya.
The pandas will quarantine for at the least 21 days earlier than guests might be allowed to see them.
Qatar is anticipating some 1.2 million guests for the monthlong World Cup starting Nov. 20. The gas-rich Gulf nation would be the first Muslim or Arab nation to host the world’s greatest sporting occasion.
Tim Bouts, the director of Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, mentioned that along with offering the proper indoor local weather for the pandas, the enclosure can even protect them from anxious noises whereas permitting them to work together with guests.
“There was a lot of thinking which went into this building to make it, I think, the best building for pandas in the world,” he mentioned.
Pandas, which reproduce hardly ever within the wild and depend on a weight loss plan of bamboo within the mountains of western China, stay among the many world’s most threatened species. An estimated 1,800 pandas dwell within the wild, whereas one other 500 are in zoos or reserves, principally in Sichuan.
They are the unofficial nationwide mascot of China, which has gifted pandas to twenty nations.
China’s ambassador to Qatar, Zhou Jian, mentioned the 2 pandas “will live a happy life here and bring more happiness, joy and a love to the people of Qatar and in this world.”