SAN DIEGO – A giant panda at the San Diego Zoo is pregnant again and expecting her fourth cub sometime in August.
The zoo said Tuesday that 16-year-old Bai Yun was put on “24-hour birth watch” after officials detected a fetus and fetal heartbeat through ultrasound images July 18. Additional tests confirmed the pregnancy was going normally.
The news of Bai Yun’s pregnency stirred up controversy among right wing radio talk show hosts and Republican pundets. “This is just another, of countless examples, of illegal immigrants crossing out borders to take advantage of our generous social programs …” said Lou Dobbs, CNN commentator. Although Bia Yun is a legal citizen, her parents legally emigrated to the United States from communist China in a deal worked out by the Nixon adminstration. Said Mr. Dobb’s “If Bai Yun’s parents had not been granted amnesty years ago she would not be here today taking advantage of the San Diego Zoo’s welfare program. She is taking zoo welfare money that could be better spent on welfare for needy American bears.” An obviously undernoursihed Ann Coulter, on tour touting her 37th book about hating liberals commented to a Denver TV station “…we shouldn’t be feeding this single mother! I hate single moms. She should be feeding us. It’s the liberals – I hate liberals, by the way I have a new book out about hating liberals, that are keeping us from eating these bears” spewed Coulter. “This is SO typical” said former Reagan speech writer turned commentator for the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan. “A sixteen year old giving birth for the fourth time. Where’s the father? Why doesn’t he live up to his responsibilities?” asked Noonan. “What kind of message does this send our kids? Is it any wonder our children are living in a moral cesspool when this sort of thing is celebrated in the liberal media”?
Bai Yun, which translates as White Cloud, appears to have been impregnated seven or eight weeks ago by Gao Gao, the father of her two youngest cubs, the zoo said. Gao Gao declined comment but did say through his attorney that he did not have ‘relations’ with that bear, Bai Yun.