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Taipei Zoo's Veteran Giant Panda Celebrates 20th Birthday

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
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Taipei Zoo's Veteran Giant Panda Celebrates 20th Birthday

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s senior panda a happy 20th birthday.
Visitors crowded around Yuanyuan's enclosure to take photos of her with a birthday cake in the shape of the number 20.
Yuanyuan was born in China and arrived in 2008 with her partner Tuantuan. He died in 2022 at age 18 but not before fathering two female cubs, Yuanzai and Yuanbao, now 11 and 4 respectively and still living at the zoo.
Danielle Shu, a 20-year-old Brazilian student in Taiwan, said she found online clips of the pandas an enjoyable distraction. “And I just find it really funny and cute,” The Associated Press quoted Shu as saying.
Giant pandas are native only to China, and Beijing bestows them as a sign of political amity. Yuanyuan and Tuantuan arrived in Taiwan during a period of relative calm between the sides, which split amid civil war in 1949. China claims the island its own territory, to be annexed by military force if necessary.
Faced with declining habitat and a notoriously low birthrate, giant panda populations have declined to around 1,900 in the mountains of western China, while 600 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers in China and around the world.

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Over 100 Tons of Dead Fish Collect at Greek Port After Climate-Related Mass Die-off

Workers collect dead fish from a river near the port city of Volos, central Greece, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, following a mass die-off linked to extreme climate fluctuations. (AP Photo/Vaggelis Kousioras)
Workers collect dead fish from a river near the port city of Volos, central Greece, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, following a mass die-off linked to extreme climate fluctuations. (AP Photo/Vaggelis Kousioras)
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Over 100 Tons of Dead Fish Collect at Greek Port After Climate-Related Mass Die-off

Workers collect dead fish from a river near the port city of Volos, central Greece, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, following a mass die-off linked to extreme climate fluctuations. (AP Photo/Vaggelis Kousioras)
Workers collect dead fish from a river near the port city of Volos, central Greece, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, following a mass die-off linked to extreme climate fluctuations. (AP Photo/Vaggelis Kousioras)

More than 100 tons of dead fish had been collected in and around the port of Volos, in central Greece, following a mass die-off linked to extreme climate fluctuations, authorities said Thursday.

The dead freshwater fish filled the bay, 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Athens, and nearby rivers after water levels were swollen by floods last year, followed by months of severe drought.

The die-off has hit local businesses along the seafront with commercial activity reduced by 80% in the past three days, according to Volos’s Chamber of Commerce, The AP reported.

Fishing trawlers have been chartered by the regional authorities, along with earthmovers, to scoop the dead fish out of the sea and load them onto trucks bound for an incinerator.

The fish came from Lake Karla in central Greece, a body of water drained in the early 1960s and restored in 2018 to combat the effects of drought.

“There are millions of dead fish all the way from Lake Karla and 20 kilometers eastward,” Anna Maria Papadimitriou, the deputy regional governor of the central Thessaly area, told state-run television.

“Right now, there is a huge effort underway to clean up the millions of dead fish that have washed along the shorelines and riverbanks... an effort that involves multiple contractors,” she said.

Water levels rose abruptly last fall during a deadly storm that caused extensive flooding in central Greece, but have since receded due to low rainfall in subsequent months and successive heat waves this summer.

The mayor of Volos lashed out at the regional authority, accusing it of acting too slowly, while the city’s Chamber of Commerce said it was taking legal action to seek damages after commercial activity dropped by an estimated 80% over the last three days.

“Businesses along the seafront, particularly in the catering industry, are now suspending operations,” the chamber said in a statement. “A strong stench along the seafront is repulsive to both residents and visitors... delivering a severe blow to tourism in Volos.” ___ Gatopoulos reported from Athens, Greece.