The pandas were married Wednesday by proxy with a couple in panda costumes parading through the city and going through the traditions of a Chinese wedding ceremony.
Chiang Mai MP Payap Shinawatra oversaw the services, in which the two panda mascots were paraded through the city in a procession with 500 people in costumes.
The mascots, wearing red and white headdresses for the services, also offered tea to the elderly, a Chinese wedding tradition.
"Start making children soon. Don't let me down," Chinese Consul Peng Ren told the couple, according to the
Bangkok Post.
The pandas, which are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, arrived in Chiang Mai in 2003 on a 10-year loan from China.
Conservatives forced the zoo to remove the word "marriage" from the name of the event, calling it instead "The Happiness and Fun Fair," after complaining that holding a wedding for animals was undignified, the
Post reported.
Name: Giant Panda (
Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
Primary Classification: Ursidae (Bears)
Location: The Sichuan, Gansu and Shanxi provinces in central China.
Habitat: Temperate bamboo forests.
Diet: Bamboo, almost exclusively.
Size: Up to 6 ft in length and 250 lbs in weight.
Description: Black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs and shoulders; white fur everywhere else; thick, woolly coat; broad, round face and flat nose; large molars; round, protruding ears; round body with short, sturdy limbs.
Cool Facts: Mothers will eat their cubs' stools to eliminate any evidence of their presence, thereby avoiding potential predators. They need to eat more than 22 lbs of bamboo per day to satisfy their daily requirement of nutrients.
Conservation Status: Endangered
Major Threat: Habitat loss and poaching.
What Can I Do?: Visit
Pandas International,
Smithsonian's National Zoo and
The Hong Kong Society for Panda Conservation for information on how you can help.
