Chinese hotel ordered to stop red panda ‘wake-up call' service
A hotel in southwestern China that allowed residents to wake up to the pitter-patter of a red panda's footsteps has been told to stop its unusual wake-up call offer on safety grounds.
The Lehe Ledu Liangjiang Holiday Hotel, which is situated in mountainous countryside near the metropolis of Chongqing, advertised 'red panda-themed holidays'.
At many safari experiences in China, close contact with the animals is promised. At the hotel, staff went one step further, allowing a red panda to visit tourists in their room, at least until its publicity proved too successful.
After an article in a Chinese magazine and consequent social media discussion of the ethics of the 'red panda wake-up call', the local forestry bureau stepped in, sending inspectors to find out what was going on.
In a statement the bureau said it had ordered an immediate halt to all 'close contact' activities with animals, and would report back on any further findings it made — often a threat of prosecution or fines.
The red panda, despite its name, is part of the extended raccoon family. It is not a bear and its only relationship to the giant panda is that it lives in the same part of China and is similarly photogenic.
Close-contact activities — paying to be photographed holding a cub — has been banned in giant panda breeding centres in China since 2018. Before that, it was a regular form of income.
That seems to have been interpreted by the Liangjiang Hotel as a special case. Since it started the practice of taking a red panda, one of four kept at the hotel for the purpose, around the rooms last year it has become a popular feature.
A British couple, Ben and Reanne Ridger from Portsmouth, who are keeping a YouTube video blog of their tour of China's provinces, enthused about the red panda experience two months ago. 'Everyone watching at home, they've never had anything like this,' Ben Ridger said, almost certainly correctly.
The panda was brought to the room by staff. How long it stayed, they said, 'depended on the red panda's mood that day', China Newsweek reported.
The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, issued a severe warning that the practice might be an abuse of animal rights.
The hotel responded to concerns that the pandas might be unhygienic or dangerous to children by insisting that they had all been vaccinated, and that children were not allowed to enjoy the experience without the presence of an adult.
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