Auckland Zoo was offered first dibs on housing the two giant pandas Key hoped to rent from the Chinese government, but the zoo declined because "black and white pandas are not in our collection plan".
Key says long before Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast's announcement last week that she wanted a pair of the endangered bears for Wellington Zoo, he had had the same idea, but was thinking of acquiring them for Auckland Zoo because the larger city had better odds of recouping the high cost of keeping the crowd-pleasing bears.
Pandas will be on the agenda when Key visits China next month and he hopes New Zealand may have pandas by the end of 2012.
He also hopes to negotiate a better price than the $1.4 million China charges zoos each year of the 10-year loan, perhaps by offering some kiwi in return.作者: MadeInChina 时间: 2010-6-27 15:52:48