A proposal to bring two pandas to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo has provoked international wrangling with wild and woolly claims by American and Chinese commenters.
More than 37,000 written statements responding to the zoo’s panda plan were filed with the Fish and Wildlife Service by the close of a public comment period Monday at midnight. The reactions appear to be predominantly negative and include a mix of incendiary charges, raw emotions and unfounded rumors, along with an occasional supporting word.
“I think the panda is increasingly becoming the people’s panda,” historian E. Elena Songster said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s complicated in the context of China, because it’s hard to know to what extent that is true, but even if it’s complete government manipulation, it’s the government wanting the panda to be perceived that way.”
A history professor at Saint Mary’s College of California and author of the book “Panda Nation: The Construction and Conservation of China’s Modern Icon,” Songster added that “you have all these anonymous, identical comments [and] it could be an individual activist who has the computer program, you know, or it could be the government is doing it, but the underlying concept there is that there’s a desire for it to be perceived as the people’s panda.”
