Panda on Display, National Zoo in Washington D.C

The National Zoo is preparing panda cub Bao Bao (bow-bow) for her public debut this month.

Bao Bao had a tryout Monday in front of the media. She spent the morning climbing on rocks and following her mother, Mei Xiang (may-shong), around the indoor exhibit.

Curators say Bao Bao has turned out to be a calm and relaxed panda cub, more subdued than older brother Tai Shan (ty-shawn).

Bao Bao goes on display Jan. 18. Curators say she may be visible inside or outside, depending on the day. Zoo members will have an early preview starting Saturday.

Bao Bao is receiving the best medical care anywhere in the world, according to handlers at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC after being born at the facility in August last year.

The panda cub was weighed on Tuesday morning, tipping the scales at just over 1st 2oz (17 pounds).

Panda handlers are currently giving Bao Bao human contact and some tactile stimulation in order for her to get used to encounters with humans.

"Her personality is really laid back. As you can see she doesn't seem to mind the interaction with us," explained biologist Laurie Thompson, from the Giant Panda Programme.

Bao Bao will make her public debut on January 18.

Man detained in China after dead tiger found in car

A dead Siberian tiger wrapped in a plastic bag lying in a SUV car in Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang province.

POLICE in China have detained a man over the death of a rare Siberian tiger discovered in the back of an SUV.

Pictures showing officers pulling the black-streaked tiger, wrapped in a plastic bag, out of a white vehicle went viral on China's Internet after they were posted online.

Police in the eastern city of Wenzhou are holding a suspect identified as a former chef in connection with the tiger's death, the local Youth Times newspaper said.

The tiger was seized by police after they spotted the bag and found its shape suspicious, the report said.

Trade in Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, is outlawed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Hundreds of the animals, known scientifically as Panthera tigris altaica, once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of northeastern China.

As recently as the 1970s China and Russia each had about 150 Siberian tigers, but now only around 20 are estimated still to survive in the wild in China.

Conservationists cite increased logging as well as poaching of the species for use in traditional Chinese medicine as among reasons for the dramatic fall in their numbers.

The body of the seized tiger is being stored in a local zoo, the report said, adding that experts judged it to be a male between five and six years old but had not yet determined the cause of its death.

The 31-year-old suspect, from Jiangxi province, was caught when two police officers spotted him and another man clumsily trying to move a long object in a plastic woven bag into a white SUV along the Jiangbin East Road on Wednesday morning.

Local police said the suspect is a former chef, according to Hangzhou-based newspaper Youth Times.

Suspicious about the cargo, the two officers, who happened to drive by the area, pulled over and ordered the two men to open the bag for inspection. The object turned out to be a dead tiger.

Police arrested the ex-chef, while the other suspect fled from the scene and is still at large.

Initial examinations by forestry department specialists found that the adult tiger, weighing about 150kg, was a male Siberian tiger aged between five and six years old. Traces of blood were seen near its mouth, though there were no other apparent wounds on the animal’s body.

A local zookeeper told the press that the tiger was unlikely to have come from the wild or the circus, as circus tigers usually have their canine teeth or “fangs” removed.

Investigators will conduct further examinations on the big cat to determine if it was implanted with a computer chip that would help them match it to a zoo.

It is a criminal offence to trade tigers, particularly Siberian tigers, which are protected under the multilateral agreement Cites, or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

It is estimated that only 20 or so wild Siberian tigers are left in China.

Zoo doctors unsure about panda birth

Veterinarians started to have doubts yesterday about whether Chiang Mai Zoo will welcome a second panda baby after Lin Hui began to appear anxious, had a rise in appetite and others signs that led them to question if she will really give birth. Head veterinarian Boripat Siriaroonrat told a press conference that his team would perform another ultrasound and progesterone test to confirm her pregnancy later yesterday, while also checking her stress hormone level.

'Acting differently'

Since Lin Hui was acting differently than the team had expected, they could not be positive that she would give birth to a cub.

In cases abroad, sometimes a giant panda whose ultrasound test showed an embryo might not give birth and sometimes a giant panda with twin embryos might only have one cub.

There were many variations in Lin Hui's case, so her behaviour pattern didn't indicate a pregnancy failure. She was still lactating. "There is a 50:50 chance Lin Hui will give birth," he said.

The zoo last month reported that Lin Hui was expecting after undergoing a series of artificial inseminations in September and that a new media 'darling' was due this week, so the zoo put the mother on a close watch and prepared a delivery room and cub-care room.

Giant panda cub Yuan Zai unveiled in Taiwan’s Taipei zoo

Six-month-old Yuan Zai, the island's first giant panda cub, was unveiled to the media on Saturday and then to the public on Monday.

She climbed around her cage before retiring for a nap with her mother, much to the delight of visitors.

Her parents Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, whose names together mean "reunion" in Chinese, were given to Taiwan by China in December 2008.

Taipei zoo expects 19,000 visitors daily to see its newest attraction.

The BBC's Cindy Sui says many visitors took time off from school and work to see the panda cub, which currently sleeps for about 20 hours each day.

Director of Taipei Zoo Jin Shih-chien said Yuan Zai was generally active for about 20 minutes at a time, and advised visitors to be patient if they found her asleep.

Taipei zoo staff had to separate tiny Yuan Zai from her mother a few days after her birth in July.

She was raised in an incubator after a slight injury in her leg.

The pandas have become star attractions at Taipei zoo, as well as a symbol of warming ties between China and Taiwan, and panda mania has swept the island since Yuan Zai was born.