Ling Ling (giant panda) is roughly equivalent to 70 years old for a human. According to the Ueno Zoo, Ling Ling was the oldest panda in Japan, as well as the fifth oldest known captive male panda in the world at the time of his death. Ling Ling's portrait and favorite food, bamboo shoots, were displayed in his cage following his death. Zoo visitors left bouquets of flowers and signed condolence registers. Ling Ling's death left the Ueno Zoo without a resident giant panda for the first time in 36 years; since October 1972 when two pandas, Kang Kang and Lan Lan, were given
Giant panda to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first Westerners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin which went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. In 1938, five giant pandas were sent to London. Gifts of giant pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the