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What鈥檚 black and white and full of birthday cake? The National Zoo鈥檚 Bao Li, who celebrated his fourth birthday Monday in D.C. with dozens of adoring fans watching.
The crowd gave muffled gasps, chuckles and 鈥渁wws鈥� as Bao Li dug into his multi-colored frozen fruit cake.
鈥淏ut he definitely passes cake because he went right to it. So we give him a passing grade on that,鈥� joked Cyndy Taylor, a local first-grade teacher and panda enthusiast.
鈥淭he zoo did a great job, like they always do, the ice cake, the fruit, the signs they made for him,鈥� said Karen Wille, a long-time panda fan and conservation advocate.
One of those signs read, 鈥淩oar I鈥檓 Four鈥� and had Bao Li dressed in a tiger costume.
The young male is one of four pandas living in the U.S. He arrived in October of last year with Qing Bao. They made their long-awaited debut in January.
鈥淗e likes to kind of show off a little bit,鈥� Ross Poquette told WTOP about Bao Li. 鈥淗e’s already kind of getting comfortable with this new environment and starting to show it playing around.鈥�
Poquette flew to D.C. from Boston to visit the pandas on Bao Li’s first birthday celebration on U.S. soil. But he made another trip with his wife earlier this year to visit Bao Li鈥檚 family in their natural habitat.
鈥淚f you ever get a chance to go to China and see where they’re born and where their natural habitat is, it’s great there,鈥� he said.
Wille hopes these popular events celebrating the pandas will inspire other enthusiasts to get involved with their conservation.
鈥淭hey’re cute, they’re fluffy, they’re all those things,” she told WTOP’s Luke Lukert. “And it’s wonderful if that gets people here, but we also want people to think about the fact that they were endangered for a long time. They’re vulnerable now, but we can never let our guard down.”
If you didn鈥檛 get to see Bao Li鈥檚 birthday, Qing Bao will be turning 4 years old next month.
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