WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hsing-Hsing, the giant panda who arrived in America as a symbol of U.S.-China detente and quickly transcended politics to become the most beloved attraction at Washington's National Zoo, has been put to sleep.
Zoo officials said they decided Saturday to end Hsing-Hsing's life because of his deteriorating condition in recent days from kidney disease first detected last May. He was 28, well beyond the life expectancy of about 20 for pandas living in the wild.Hsing-Hsing was given a lethal injection early Sunday after being treated Saturday to his favorite foods -- blueberry muffins, sweet potatoes and the staple of the panda's diet, bamboo shoots.
"It doesn't get any more difficult than this," said Lisa Stevens, associate curator of mammals at the zoo. "Seeing an animal still struggle to live and weighing that against what's humane."
Hsing-Hsing's death leaves five pandas in American zoos -- three in San Diego and two that arrived earlier this month at Zoo Atlanta. There are some 130 giant pandas in zoos around the world, all but 16 in the animal's only native habitat, China.
The panda is one of the world's most endangered species, with estimates -- believed by many to be overly optimistic -- of about 1,000 surviving in China's mountains.
Even before Hsing-Hsing's death, the National Zoo was negotiating with China to obtain a pair of pandas for research and breeding. Deputy Director McKinley Hudson said it would be a long process, particularly because the National Zoo, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution, doesn't have the financial resources of some private zoos.
Zoo Atlanta has agreed to pay $1 million a year over 10 years to China for research and conservation efforts in exchange for receiving pandas on loan. Hudson said the National Zoo has offered China $2.5 million, or $250,000 a year.
Hsing-Hsing and his female partner, Ling-Ling, arrived in Washington in April 1972, a gift from the Chinese government just two months after President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to Beijing that reopened U.S.-China contacts.
Pandas have been notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, and Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling were unable to produce an heir. Ling-Ling, who died in 1992, gave birth four times to five cubs, but none survived longer than four days.