BEIJING — Everyone needs some chicken soup for the souleven pandas.
The Wuhan Zoo in central China has been feeding its two pandas home-cooked chicken soup twice a month to reduce stress and give them a nutritional boost, a zoo official said Friday. He Zhihua said 3-year-old Xiwang and Weiwei — literally meaning “Hope” and “Greatness” — were tired and suffering from a little shock since the start Monday of the week-long National Day holiday, one of the biggest travel seasons of the year. On Wednesday, up to 30,000 people swarmed the zoo and about 1,000 tourists packed the panda enclosure, shouting to get the animals’ attention, He said. The pandas paced restlessly.
Reflecting the Chinese tradition of drinking chicken soup for health, the zookeepers boiled roosters in water overnight and added a pinch of salt to the concentrated stock. The pandas were served 2.2 pounds of soup in giant dishes, in addition to their regular diet of bamboo, milk and buns, He said. It was a hit.
The Associated Press
