(AL KHOR, Qatar) — A duo of giant pandas given as a gift from China did arrive in Qatar on Wednesday, just in time for the World Cup next month.
They will live in an indoor compartment in the desert country designed to resemble conditions in China’s mountainous Sichuan region’s dense forests.
Each week, 800 kilograms (aaproximately 1,800 pounds) of fresh bamboo will also be flown in to feed them.
Jing Jing, a 4 yr old male weighing 120 kilograms (approximately 265 pounds), has been offered the Arabic name Suhail, and Si Hai, a 3 yr old female, has been named Thuraya.
Before visitors can see the pandas, they must be quarantined for a minimum of 21 days.
Qatar expects 1.2 million visitors for the month-long World Cup, which begins Nov. 20. The gas-rich Gulf state will be the first Muslim or Arab nation to host the world’s most important sporting event.
According to Tim Bouts, director of Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, the enclosure will not only provide the pandas with the ideal indoor climate, but it will also protect them from exhausting noises whilst also permitting them to interact with visitors.
“A lot of thought went into this structure to make it, in my opinion, the best building for pandas in the world,” he said.
Pandas, which reproduce infrequently in the wild and survive on a diet of bamboo in western China’s mountains, are some of world’s most endangered species.
There are approximately 1,800 pandas in the wild, with another 500 in zoos and reserves, mostly within Sichuan. They are China’s unsanctioned national mascot, and the country has given pandas to 20 countries.
Zhou Jian, China’s envoy to Qatar, stated that the two pandas “will live a happy existence here and bring further happiness, joy, as well as love to the citizens of Qatar and the rest of the world.”
