Table of Live Pandas, 1936-1953

Title: Table of Live Pandas, 1936-1953
Identifier: DS_0016
Description: From 1936 to 1946, 14 live baby pandas were captured and sent to zoos in the US and UK. Of these, Mei-Lan lived the longest - almost 15 years at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.
Commentary: Based on a similar table of captive baby pandas created by Desmond and Ramona Morris (1966), this table is revised and updated with data compiled for a series of conference papers and articles.

It will never be known how many live baby pandas were captured between 1936 when Ruth Harkness and Quentin Young captured Su-Lin for the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, and 1945 when David Crockett Graham and Ma Teh captured Lien Ho for the London Zoo. Many died before they left China. All fourteen pandas that survived to live in zoos in the US and UK had individual names and personalities. Few lived longer than five years in captivity.

Like the dead specimens, a remarkable number of these pandas sojourned at the WCUU campus or were obtained by WCUU affiliated missionaries.
Creator: Cory Willmott
Date Created: 2023-09-02
Relation: Panda Specimens in Major American Museums, 1919-1941
Provenance: Original research.
Access Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher: SIUE
Record Date: 2025-12-27
Contributor: Cory Willmott
Type: Table
References: Morris, Desmond, and Ramona Morris. Men and Pandas. Hutchinson and Co. Pub., 1966.

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