How to Make a Croc Look Cuddly: Paint It Like a Panda

Ever since a pair of pandas on loan from China gave birth to a cub in May, Thailand has gone ga-ga for the black-and-white bears.

One television network broadcasts 24-hour coverage of the cub, Lin Ping, on its "Panda Channel" as she chows down on bamboo shoots, plays with tires and nuzzles her mother. Street vendors and fashion designers have incorporated panda motifs into their work, and the country's top zoologist has taken to wearing a panda costume for TV interviews. Panda fever appeared to reach a fresh peak in October, when two armed men held up a gas station in Bangkok and made off with two stuffed pandas -- leaving the cash register untouched.

The pandas are part of China's efforts to step up trade and political ties in Southeast Asia. In 2003, it rented a pair of pandas to Thailand's Chiang Mai Zoo for $300,000 a year -- a sharp discount from the $1 million a year China typically charges zoos in the U.S.

The birth of Lin Ping this year was a cash bonanza for the zoo, as well as an achievement for Thai zoologists. The only other countries besides China to have bred a panda cub are Japan and the U.S. "It's like winning the lottery," says Sophon Dumnui, director-general of Thailand's Zoological Park Association, this time wearing a suit and tie rather than his panda outfit.

Visitors to the zoo doubled to 1.2 million the first year the pandas were there, he says, bringing in an average of $2.7 million a year, including souvenirs. The arrival of Lin Ping in July brought additional revenue of $1.5 million in just six months.

It's all too much for some Thais, though. They worry that amid all this pandemonium Thailand is forgetting its own endangered species, especially the elephant and the crocodile. Their response: If you can't beat the panda-huggers, join them, preferably with the help of a couple of jars of black and white paint.

At several sites across the country, commercial aquariums and animal parks are painting their animals in panda colors to keep up visitor numbers in the face of tougher competition -- as well as educate people about the threats elephants and crocodiles face in the wild.

Mr. Kamla, a 25-year-old crocodile-handler, fielded a barrage of questions from schoolchildren recently at Buengchawark Underwater Sea Paradise as he and a colleague painted a three-month-old Siamese crocodile in panda colors.

"They're an endangered species, too, like the panda, so we hope some of our knowledge will trickle down," Mr. Kamla says.

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