Feature: Giant panda couple arrive in Singapore

A giant panda couple arrived in Singapore on Thursday on a ten-year loan to the excitement of cheering crowds at the airport and, later, at the Singapore Zoo.

Kai Kai and Jia Jia, known as Wu Jie and Hu Bao respectively in China, arrived in the city state on board a chartered plane. They left their home at the Bifengxia Panda Base in Ya'an, a city in China's southwestern province of Sichuan, on Wednesday afternoon.

They took off from the Shuangliu Airport in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, at 3:50 a.m. on Thursday. Wildlife Reserves Singapore said the trip was scheduled such that the pandas can avoid the heat and humidity of tropical Singapore.

ONION HEAD

The panda couple were put in a custom-made crates with ample ventilation and space to move about. The cabin temperature was kept between 18 to 22 degrees Celsius, consistent to their native habitat in Sichuan.

The giant pandas are believed to be the rarest member of the bear family and among the world's most threatened animals. It is estimated that there are less than 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild, most in Sichuan province.

A team of five veterinarians and zoo keepers were on board the Boeing 747 cargo freighter to regularly check on the pandas, who were traveling away from home for the first time in their life.

The keepers also brought fruits, water and about 90 kg of bamboo on board for the pandas' meals. Wildlife Reserves Singapore also brought along bamboo from a city in China, in case the pandas need time to adjust to the taste of locally-grown bamboo.

Kai Kai and Jia Jia arrived at the River Safari, their new home for the next ten years, in the morning, to the warm welcome of a cheering crowd outside the entrance of the Singapore Zoo.

"I like the pandas because they are big, and they are the favorite animal to China. And they are black and white, and I like black and white," said a little girl in the crowd.

"I like how they eat and sleep," said another girl.

Kai Kai was born in 2007 and Jia Jia in 2008. An adult giant panda typically weighs around 100 kg and eats about 15 to 20 kg of bamboo a day. Kai Kai has an additional 550 grams of biscuits a day, while Jia Jia has 450 grams.

Kai Kai likes to take a nap after eating. He has an "onion head, " which is created by a small tuft of fur on his head.

"NAUGHTY GIRL"

Wildlife Reserves Singapore said the pandas will be quarantined for one month before they meet visitors at the River Safari.

Serena Oh, assistant director of veterinary services at Wildlife Reserves Singapore, said Kai Kai, the male panda, has " sort of settled in" and started eating bamboo shortly after arriving at his new home at River Safari, Singapore.

Jia Jia was still smelling her den and moving around a lot. She had not tasted the bamboo put down by the keepers.

"It will take her a bit more time to settle in," Oh told Xinhua.

Oh, who was in China with the pandas for 15 days before their departure, said Jia Jia was a bit shy and it took her a few days to get used to the medical and zoological staff from Singapore.

"She likes to climb trees. At night she would sleep in a tree and in the morning we will have to call her down to come in and to feed her," she said.

Kai Kai settled in much faster than Jia Jia.

"Kai Kai is more food-oriented. It was a very short time before he was taking food from our hands," Oh said.

Oh said the habitat for the pandas in Singapore is air- conditioned, with the temperature and humidity controlled so that they can be similar to those in the natural habitat of the giant pandas in China.

CAMERA INSTINCT

Kai Kai and Jia Jia traveled to Singapore on a ten-year loan under a research and cooperation project between Wildlife Reserves Singapore and China Wildlife Conservation Association, based on an agreement announced during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2009.

Wu Tianhong, the keeper who had been taking care of the two pandas in their infancy and in the recent several months, said Jia Jia eats like a lady but is a naughty girl when not eating.

"She often climbs up the tree and sometimes even brings the bamboo with her to sit on a branch and devours it," Wu said.

Jia Jia tries to reach her hand out of the crate when she made a brief appearance after landing at the Changi Airport.

Wu said Jia Jia only had water in the first hours after leaving her home in Ya'an and started eating bamboo sprouts only when she arrived in Chengdu.

"She is a girl, and a bit shy, too. So she is a bit tense. I checked on her a couple of times and she was taking only water," she said.

Kai Kai has an instinct for the cameras and often performs his stunt of hanging from the trees in front of the cameras.

"He is a boy. So it does not seem to bother him much. He just eats well, drinks well and sleeps well," Wu said.

CHARTERED FLIGHT

Two giant pandas from China traveled to Singapore for a period of three months in 1990 when the two countries established diplomatic ties. There has since been a lot of interest in the giant pandas in Singapore.

"It is a sign of the friendship between our two countries, and the pandas will be very popular," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a recent interview with Chinese media.

Dai Bing, charge d'affaires ad interim at the Chinese Embassy, said the pandas are a sign of growing ties between the two countries on the non-governmental level as well.

"The bilateral relations between China and Singapore have been really friendly, bringing real benefits to their people," he said.

Singapore's River Safari spent 8.6 million Singapore dollars ( 683 million U.S. dollars) to build the house for the giant pandas. It has an area of 1,500 meters with changes in their environment similar to the seasonal changes in their home town.

The Singapore Post launched special stamps for the arrival of the pandas and the Monetary Authority launched commemorative coins.

"If I am not wrong, it seems that the two guests are the only two guests that have been given a chartered flight by Singapore. None of our own people has had a chartered flight, not even all our presidents and prime ministers," a Singapore netizen wrote jokingly on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.