Ruth Harkness and the First Live Wild Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in the United States of America

Wildlife-loving amateurs and professionals access two founts of knowledge regarding giant pandas:

• First-hand information;
• Third-party interactions.

Viewings in parks, preserves, reserves, sanctuaries, and zoos and visits to museums respectively dominate the first above-mentioned source in regard to live proof at the former locales and with respect to preserved specimens at the latter sites. Anecdotes and documentation contrastingly epitomize the second above-mentioned source. They function as insights respectively based upon:

• Memories and traditions conveyed generationally and verbally;
• Observations and research recorded officially and publicly.

They have their most helpful expressions as:

• Oral histories;
• Scientific investigations.

The second-mentioned configuration includes taxonomies. For example, it involves the first formal presentation in 1869 of giant pandas to wildlife-lovers outside continental Asia.  

Admirers of giant pandas indeed benefit from scientific descriptions conscientiously penned by Ezpeleta-born Basque Countryman Père (Armand) David (September 27, 1826 - November 10, 1900), as:  

• Brother, novitiate, priest dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul’s (April 24, 1581 - September 27, 1660) concerns over displaced objects and suffering peoples, 1846 - 1850;
• Instructor in natural sciences at Italy’s Savona Lazarist College, 1851 - 1861;
• Missionary and Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Paris (Paris Natural History Museum) naturalist in China, 1862 - 1873.

Davidian industriousness explains the ease in identifying panda habitats and populations despite the species’ reclusive elusiveness. The perfect match between pelt and taxonomy is the facilitating factor in Ruth Harkness’s retrieving live pandas and surviving to write about the adventures. 

The first United-Statesian extraction of live, wild giant pandas comes from Ruth Elizabeth McCombs Harkness (September 21, 1900 - July 20, 1947) in 1936. It is the first such rescue not to involve domestication or fresh-kill. It succeeds:

• Dresden-born German zoologist Max Hugo Weigold (May 27, 1886 - July 9, 1973) expeditioning with Gera-born German ethnologist Walther Stötzner (April 13, 1882 - October 22, 1965) in 1916, pioneering the first European observations of living wild giant pandas, and purchasing a semi-domesticated cub;
• Oyster Bay-born explorers Kermit (October 10, 1889 - June 4, 1943) and Theodore (September 13, 1887 - July 12, 1944) Roosevelt realizing -- for Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History -- the first United-Statesian wild panda kill in 1925. 

The Harkness extraction constitutes a major feat realized by a woman. But its initial implementation does not represent a mission ideated by a woman. It instead gets its jump-start from:

• The Bronx Zoo;
• The New York Zoological Society;
• William Harvest Harkness, Jr. (January 26, 1902 - February 19, 1936).

The first two entities have historical roles in encouraging the collection of live, wild specimens to:

• Allow the public to appreciate what the wealthy get to enjoy through private collections of human- and natural-made wonders;
• Let scientists compare information deduced from environment-, preservative-, and storage-impacted specimens with empirical data;
• Permit funding sources to observe the educational value and socio-economic worth of having institutional collections on par with Europe’s. 

Collection-builders and collection-holders converge with Bill escorting three Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) from Indonesia to New York in May 1934. That feat and Bill's throat cancer-related death in Shanghai, China impel wife Ruth (married September 9, 1934 - February 19, 1936) to travel by:

• American Trader departing April 17, 1936, New York – London;

• SS Tancred, Marseilles - Shanghai;

• Whangpu steamer and Mei Ling and Standard Oil ferries, Shanghai - Chengdu;

• Caravan to Qionglai Shan's (Sichuan Mountains') Wassu lands;

• Douglas airplane, Chengdu – Shanghai;

• President McKinley arriving December 18, 1936, Shanghai – San Francisco;

• Overland Limited arriving December 22, Chicago;

• Commodore Vanderbilt arriving December 23, Manhattan.

It makes history.

The discovery around 9:00 a.m. on November 9, 1936 near Camp Two -- at 10,000 – 11,000 feet (3,048 – 3,352.8 meters) above sea level -- alters 3-pound (1.36-kilogram), 2-month-old orphaned Su-Lin's (Little Cutie) life cycle and natural history. It informs Baby's:

• Exiting as a $20.00-valued “dog”;

• Inhabiting Ruth's Manhattan apartment at 333 West Eighteenth Street;

• Joining Chicago's Brookfield Zoo on February 8, 1937.

It is the catalyst to Ruth's:

• Accessing six days from Chaopo Mei-Mei (“Little Sister”) on December 18, 1937;

• Journeying by Empress of Russia, January 28 – February 12, 1938, to Victoria, British Columbia with the 13-pound (5.90-kilogram), wicker basket-smuggled orphan;

• Train-riding by California Limited to Chicago, February 18, 1938.

The Harkness-effectuated panda extractions come to a total of three. Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History claims Baby Little Cutie's (1936 – 1938) taxidermized body. Chicago's Brookfield Zoo commemorates him and Ruth's Little Sister (1936 – 1942). But no institution details life cycles and natural histories for Su-Sen. Ruth's Little Tomboy exists nowhere since giant panda lifespans average 20 – 30 years. The 50-pound (22.68-kilogram) orphan cub nevertheless has the distinction of:

• Extraction near Chengdu in June 1938;

• Release on Qionglai Shan in July 1938.

It is Ruth's prescience which informs her compassionate exfiltrations, exotic domestications, and wild re-introductions. Ruth's appreciation of cultural and natural diversity indeed predicts the twenty-first century's wildlife-loving environmental activists and educators.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also known as red cat-bear, shares with Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) a passion for bamboo.
"Panda" is an Anglicization of poonya, "eater of bamboo."
Chengdu, Sichuan Province, southwestern China: ogwen, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/ogwen/58717656/

Chengdu, capital of China's southwestern Sichuan Province, is located on alluvial Chengdu Plain in western Sichuan Basin; to the city's west are the Qionglai Mountains.
Chengdu is the type locality for Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca); Sichuan Province provided Armand David's specimen and sourced Ruth Harkness' cubs.
Chengdu Plain's Linpan (林盤, "surrounded by woods") of small farms, rectangular fields, natural elements (bamboo, trees, water): Yuehan wang, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Typical_Linpan_unit_in_Pi_County.jpg

Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) under synonyms of Ailuropus melanoleucus or Ursus melanoleucus
chromolithograph by Guillaume Severeyns of illustration by Huet from female specimen sent by French Lazarist missionary, botanist and zoologist Armand David (September 7, 1826-November 10, 1900) to Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
H. and A. Milne-Edwards, Recherches pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des mammifères-Atlas (1868-1874), Plate 50: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39564366

"The Giant Panda" by Arthur August Jansson (August 1, 1890-March 31, 1960) of AMNH Department of Preparation, based upon photographs by Kermit Roosevelt (October 10, 1889-June 4, 1943) and painting by Carl Rungius (August 18, 1869-October 21, 1959)
Natural History, Journal of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. XXX, no. 1 (January-February 1930), cover: via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/naturalhistory3016newy/page/n10/mode/1up

Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), largest living species of lizard: the first exhibition of a living komodo dragon in the U.S. was at the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, thanks to Ruth's husband, William Harvest Harkness, Jr.
Komodo National Park, Lesser Sunda Islands (Nusa Tenggara), Indonesia, Maritime South East Asia: Adhi Rachdian from Indonesia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Komodo_dragon_at_Komodo_National_Park_Indonesia.jpg

Ruth Elizabeth Harkness and Su Lin
Mistakenly thought to be female, Su Lin was named after Chinese-American explorer Adelaide "Su-Lin" Young (December 23, 1911-April 17, 2008).
"Mrs. Harkness Returns Minus Panda," The China Journal, Vol. XXIX, No. 2 (August 1938): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruth_Elizabeth_Harkness_and_Su_Lin.jpg

the excitement of first live panda in the United States: Federal Art Project-WPA-ILL (Works Project Administration-Illinois) poster of Su Lin at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo
"Brookfield Zoo--By the 'L' / Long", silkscreen print on board (poster) by Charles Raymond Long (1909-1976); Date stamped on verso: June 15 1938
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Work Projects Administration Poster Collection: No known restrictions on publication, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/98513301/

Taxidermized Su Lin at The Field Museum: "Ruth Harkness captured Su Lin...and brought him to the United States....Su Lin arrived at the Brookfield Zoo February 1936 and died there of pneumonia, at about two years old, in April 1938.
An autopsy revealed that Su Lin -- thought to be female -- was really male....During his brief life, Su Lin charmed Brookfield Zoo visitors and the entire country. He appeared frequently in the press, newsreels, and on the radio."
Field Museum, Chicago, Cook County, northeastern Illinois: Zagalejo, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Su-Lin.JPG

"Mrs W. H. Harkness brings a new baby panda at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago,Illinois...HD Stock Footage" (0:58)
Uploaded June 30, 2014, by CriticalPast to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_KJKYK8ds8

Su Lin at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo: Federal Art Project-WPA-ILL (Works Project Administration-Illinois) poster
"Visit the Brookfield Zoo by the 'L' / Gregg", silkscreen print on board (poster) by Arlington Gregg (1909-1964); Date stamped on verso: June 15 1938.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Work Projects Administration Poster Collection: No known restrictions on publication, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) @ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95514304/

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