Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Zoo pandas eat, sleep and, if the zookeepers are lucky, make little pandas. They also make a lot of money for China, their native land, which rents them out to zoos around the world, including the Chiang Mai Zoo In Thailand. The Thai zoo pays China $250,000 US a year for Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui. Luckily for the Thai zookeepers, the panda pair also do one other thing — they poop, about 25 kilos a day between the two of them. Why is this lucky for the Chiang Mai Zoo? Because it’s developed a way to make paper products out of the panda poop, and these little souvenirs — notebooks, fans, bookmarks and key chains — are selling quite nicely. So far the zoo has raised $8,200 US through panda poop paper, an entirely new kind of P3.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006