&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Japan will soon lose all its pandas for first time in 50 years. This zoo's bizarre solution is going viral")
At Japan's Adventure World amusement park in the Wakayama prefecture, staff members are dressing up as pandas after they lost the last four that were returned to China. It is a way to keep the memory of having pandas alive and also to ensure that the visitors coming to the zoo remain engaged. Four pandas, the 24-year-old Rauhin and her offspring, Yuihin, Saihin and Fuhin, returned to China in June last year. The park housed pandas in its enclosures for 31 years. Rauhin was also the first panda to be born and raised in Japan. The pandas may have gone, but the zoo has kept all its arrangements in place, even though it isn't clear whether it will ever get more pandas from China. Meanwhile, it has started certain activities to keep the visitors engaged. The park has gotten four staff members to dress up as pandas while letting visitors act as their instructors and handlers. This quirky method went viral after Japanese media outlets reported on it in December.
People can treat pandas at this Japan zoo
The park holds a panda keeper experience tour every week. People can become panda keepers and feed one of the four "pandas", essentially staff members mimicking the animals. They take turns to be at the enclosure and keep the visitors entertained. A viral video on social media shows a staff member wearing a panda hat and pretending to eat an apple given to him by a participant.
They can also go inside the pandas’ living areas. Later, they are given a keeper certificate as well.
The idea of holding this event came to the park’s public relations officer, Manami Wakabayashi, who has been raising pandas for three decades. It is part of the Panda Love Club and also includes events where the keepers talk about the pandas that have left and tours of the animal's playground. Japan still has two pandas, twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, born at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, but they are due to return to China by the end of January. Japan will be left panda-less for the first time in over 50 years.
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