Berlin Trip, 14-28 May 2009

Berlin Tiergarten Zoo

The male panda Bau Bau, 29 years old

(Tragically, the 22-year-old female, Yan Yan,
died on 26 March 2009)

The Berlin Tiergarten Zoo is in mourning following the surprise death of 22-year-old lady Panda Yan Yan, whose name means "The Cute One." She was found on Monday afternoon after alarmed visitors reported her lying motionless in her outdoor enclosure where she liked to roll around in the sand and lazily munch on bamboo shoots.

A postmortem showed that she died of heart failure caused by acute constipation, zoo vet Andreas Ochs told the Associated Press. There had been no signs that Yan Yan had been in any pain so it had been impossible to detect that she was constipated, he added.

Pandas can live more than 30 years. Berlin zoo's other Panda, Bao Bao, is 29 and going strong. Yan Yan is being kept in a refrigerated room while officials decide what to do with her. Technically she still belongs to China, which loaned her to the zoo in 1995. (From Spiegel Online, 27 March 2009.)