Ruth Harkness and Su Lin: The First Panda to Reach the Western World

Key Fact: In December 1936, a baby giant panda named Su Lin arrived at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago — the first live panda ever seen in the West. He had been captured in the mountains of Sichuan by Ruth Harkness, an American socialite with no scientific training who had completed her late husband’s expedition. Su Lin’s arrival triggered a global “panda fever” that transformed public perception of the species and launched the modern era of panda fascination — for better and for worse.

Key Takeaways

1. Ruth Harkness was an unlikely explorer — a New York socialite and fashion designer who completed her deceased husband’s panda expedition with no prior wilderness experience.

2. Su Lin was the first live panda in the Western world — his 18 months at Brookfield Zoo transfixed America and created the modern panda icon.

3. The expedition sits at the pivot point between exploitation and protection — it removed a wild cub from its habitat but also sparked the public love that later fueled conservation.

The Woman Who Would Not Stay Home

Ruth Harkness, born Ruth McCombs in 1900 in Pennsylvania, was an unlikely candidate for one of the 20th century’s most famous wildlife expeditions. She worked as a fashion designer in New York City, moved in socialite circles, and had never camped or hunted. On paper, she was the last person you would expect to trek into one of the world’s most remote mountain ranges.

In 1934, she married William Harkness, an adventurer from a wealthy family. William had already made a name for himself in Asia — he had traveled through China, hunted tigers in India, and explored remote regions of Tibet. His next ambition: capture a live giant panda.

At the time, not a single giant panda lived in any Western zoo. A few Western explorers had seen pandas in the wild. Skins and skeletons had reached museums in Paris, London, and New York. But the living animal remained a legend — a creature described by one hunter as “a bear that looks like a Chinese drawing.”

William Harkness was determined to bring one back.

The Expedition That Ended Before It Began

William departed for China in early 1936, funded in part by the Bronx Zoo and other institutions. He reached Shanghai and began preparing his expedition into the mountains of Sichuan.

Then he fell ill.

On February 15, 1936, William Harkness died in a Shanghai hotel room. Throat cancer. He was 43 years old. His expedition had not even reached the mountains.

In New York, Ruth received the news by telegram. She was 36 years old, newly widowed, and suddenly faced with a choice. She could grieve, move on, and return to her life as a fashion designer. Or she could finish what her husband had started.

She booked a passage to China.

Into the Mountains of Sichuan

Ruth arrived in Shanghai in April 1936. She carried her husband’s expedition notes, a collection of camping equipment, and a determination that surprised everyone who met her.

She hired Quentin Young, a Chinese-American explorer who had worked with William. Young was essential — he spoke Chinese, understood the logistics of mountain travel, and knew how to negotiate with local authorities. Together, they assembled a team: local hunters from the Sichuan highlands, porters, cooks, and guides.

The expedition traveled westward from Shanghai, through the Yangtze gorges, into the mountains of Sichuan province. The terrain was brutal: steep limestone cliffs, dense bamboo forests, freezing temperatures at altitude, and constant rain.

You feel the damp before you see the mountains. The air thickens, carries the smell of wet earth and bamboo leaves. Your boots sink into mud that never fully dries. Above you, mist hangs between the peaks, sometimes clearing to reveal cliffs that rise hundreds of meters straight up. Below, the river roars through the gorge — a sound that never stops, day or night.

For weeks, the team found nothing. They saw panda tracks. They found half-eaten bamboo stalks. They stumbled across an abandoned den. But no pandas.

The silence of the bamboo forest is deceptive. It seems empty — just green stalks rising in every direction, creaking in the wind. But the hunters read signs invisible to Western eyes: a broken stem here, a scat pile there, a faint trail through the undergrowth. They move like shadows, and when one of them stops, everyone stops. The air holds its breath.

By October, the team had been in the mountains for months. Funds were running low. Ruth was recovering from a near-fatal bout of dysentery. Some of the porters had abandoned the expedition. It seemed the mission would fail.

November 9, 1936 — The Hollow Tree

On November 9, a young hunter named Zong Lin — walking ahead of the main party — spotted a hollow tree. Inside, curled in a ball of black-and-white fur, was a baby panda cub. He was small enough to fit in two cupped hands. His eyes were barely open. He was, the guides estimated, about three months old — and abandoned.

When they place the cub in Ruth’s hands, he weighs almost nothing — three or four pounds of fur and bone. His small body trembles. He makes a sound like a kitten mewing. Ruth wraps him in her wool coat, holds him against her chest. The cub nestles into the warmth and falls asleep. The entire expedition stops. No one speaks. For a long moment, there is only the wind in the bamboo and the tiny heartbeat against her ribs.

She named him Su Lin — “a little bit of something very cute” in Chinese.

The team had agreed: they wanted a live panda, but they also wanted a cage and a tranquilized, full-grown specimen. What they got was a baby that needed to be fed every two hours, kept warm, and carried through the mountains.

Ruth became a makeshift mother. She fed Su Lin from a baby bottle — condensed milk, then later a formula of cow’s milk, cod liver oil, and glucose. She kept him in a wicker basket lined with wool. She learned to interpret his small sounds: hungry, cold, scared.

The cub wakes every three hours through the night, mewling until he feels the bottle nipple against his lips. His paws — larger than they should be for such a small body — grip the bottle as he drinks. When he finishes, he burrows into Ruth’s coat and falls asleep again, his small ribcage rising and falling against her arm.

The Journey to America

The return journey took five weeks — from the mountains of Sichuan to Shanghai, then by ship across the Pacific.

Every stop along the way drew crowds. In Shanghai, Ruth was mobbed by journalists. On the ship, passengers lined up to see the cub in his wicker basket. In Japan, where the ship stopped for refueling, local officials came aboard to see the famous panda.

Ruth had not planned for this. She was a private person who had just finished a grueling expedition. But she quickly learned that Su Lin was no longer just a cub — he was a sensation.

The ship docked in San Francisco on December 18, 1936. Customs officials inspected Su Lin (he passed) and Ruth (she passed). The American press had been following the story for weeks. Headlines announced: “First Live Panda to Reach America!”

Su Lin at Brookfield Zoo

Ruth had offers from several zoos. She chose Brookfield Zoo in Chicago (then called the Chicago Zoological Park) — partly because it had a modern exhibit space, partly because it was away from the intense media pressure of New York.

Su Lin arrived at Brookfield on December 31, 1936. The zoo had prepared a heated glass-fronted enclosure — “Panda Den” — decorated with bamboo and artificial rocks. The temperature was kept at a steady 65°F (18°C), carefully monitored.

Inside the Panda Den, Su Lin explores his new territory. His nose twitches — the glass smells different from the hollow tree. Outside, behind the glass, dozens of faces press forward. He does not understand the faces. He turns in a circle, finds a spot of sunlight on the floor, and curls up to sleep. The crowd exhales — a collective sigh of delight.

On the first weekend, 53,000 people came to see him — the largest attendance in the zoo’s 12-year history. The crowd stretched for blocks. Police were called to manage traffic.

Su Lin became a media phenomenon. Life magazine ran a photo spread. Time magazine featured him in its animal section. Newsreels showed him drinking from his bottle, playing with a ball, sleeping in his basket. Children wrote him letters. A song was written about him.

The Dark Side of Panda Fever

Su Lin’s celebrity had an immediate and destructive consequence.

Zoos around the world, seeing the crowds Su Lin attracted, wanted their own pandas. Hunters flooded into Sichuan. At least a dozen cubs were captured in the following three years. The methods were brutal: hunters often killed mothers to reach their cubs.

The most famous subsequent capture was by Floyd Tangier Smith, a British-American hunter who brought out five cubs in 1938 — including Mei Mei, Mei Lan, and Pandora. These pandas were distributed to zoos in London, New York, and elsewhere.

The result was devastating for the wild population. In just a few years, the panda went from an obscure mountain species to a hunted trophy — all because of the public love that Su Lin had inspired.

The irony is bitter: the same little cub that made the world fall in love with pandas also triggered a wave of killing.

Su Lin himself did not have an easy life. Brookfield Zoo was well-intentioned but had no experience caring for pandas. There was no established diet for captive pandas — no one knew what they should eat. Su Lin was fed cow’s milk, cereals, fruits, and whatever bamboo shoots could be imported (expensive and inconsistent).

The zoo keepers try everything. Cane sugar. Rice gruel. Apples. Carrots. Cow’s milk with honey. Su Lin eats willingly but never thrives the way he might on mother’s milk and wild bamboo. His coat, glossy when he arrived, begins to dull. His energy comes in fits and starts — periods of play followed by deep, long sleeps.

Compared to modern zoo care — where pandas receive specially formulated biscuits, precisely sourced bamboo, and medical monitoring — Su Lin’s care was primitive.

The Controversy

Ruth Harkness’s legacy is complicated.

Critics accused her of being a trophy hunter in socialite’s clothing. The New York Times, while covering Su Lin’s arrival, subtly questioned the ethics of removing a wild cub from its habitat. Some animal welfare advocates argued that Su Lin’s death was inevitable — that no zoo at the time could properly care for a panda.

Ruth defended herself. She wrote a book, The Baby Giant Panda, published in 1938, in which she described her journey and her love for Su Lin. She argued that bringing a panda to the West would increase public interest in the species — and that this interest would ultimately lead to protection.

As I sit here now, trying to write, I see his face in my mind. The dark patches around his eyes. The way he would wrap his paws around my arm. Was it wrong, what I did? I took him from the forest. I brought him across the world. He died in a cage. But before he died, he made millions of people love him. And maybe — I believe this, I must believe this — that love will save his kind.

She was not entirely wrong. The public affection for Su Lin directly contributed to the later conservation campaigns that protected wild panda habitat and established captive breeding programs. But that outcome was decades away and far from guaranteed.

Su Lin’s Death and Legacy

On April 1, 1938, Su Lin died. He had been ill for several weeks — lethargic, refusing food, breathing with difficulty. The zoo’s veterinarian diagnosed pneumonia.

He was approximately 18 months old.

The news made front pages across America. Thousands of children sent letters of condolence to the zoo. Brookfield Zoo held a small memorial. Su Lin’s body was preserved and sent to the Field Museum of Natural History, where it remains in the research collection.

The panda’s room is quiet now. The glass front is dark. Outside, a few visitors linger, reading the small sign: ‘Su Lin — Giant Panda — November 9, 1936 — April 1, 1938.’ A child asks her mother: ‘Where did Su Lin go?’ The mother does not have an answer.

Two Views of Ruth Harkness

Dimension	Exploitation View	Protection View
Motive	Removed a wild cub from its habitat for entertainment	Completed a scientific expedition with genuine love for the animal
Impact	Triggered a wave of panda hunting (12+ cubs captured in 3 years)	Sparked public affection that eventually supported conservation
Care	Zoo conditions were inadequate — improper diet, no medical expertise	Ruth provided devoted care under the limitations of 1930s knowledge
Legacy	A colonial-era exploitation of Chinese wildlife by Western adventurers	The first chapter in the story of panda protection
Duration	Su Lin lived only 18 months — a short, confined life	His 18 months changed the species’ global trajectory forever

Both views are true. Ruth Harkness was neither a villain nor a saint. She was a complicated figure operating in an era before wildlife ethics had codified rules — and her expedition had consequences she could not have predicted.

The Deeper Context: Erased Chinese Expertise

One aspect of the Ruth Harkness story deserves specific attention. Western media — then and now — tended to tell the story as a solitary heroine narrative: the plucky American widow who braved the wilds of China alone.

The reality was different.

Ruth Harkness succeeded because of a team of Chinese explorers, hunters, and guides whose names have largely been forgotten. Quentin Young (Yang Kun-tin) organized the entire expedition, handled logistics, negotiated with local officials, and managed the team. Zong Lin, the young tracker, actually found Su Lin. The porters carried the cub through the mountains. The cooks kept the expedition fed.

In her book, Harkness acknowledged these contributions generously. But the Western headlines told a simpler story: “Woman Captures Panda.” The Chinese expertise was quietly erased — a pattern that characterized much of Western exploration history.

From Exploitation to Protection: The Arc of the Story

Ruth Harkness and Su Lin belong to the “exploration and exploitation” chapter of the panda’s relationship with humans. Within the frame of our History of Panda Conservation, they appear in the early sections — before the Wildlife Protection Law, before CITES, before the research loan system, before the global conservation infrastructure existed.

Era	Period	Character
Exploitation	Pre-1949	Hunters capture pandas for trophies and zoos
Transition	1950s-1970s	Panda diplomacy gifts begin; first captive births
Legal protection	1980s-1990s	Wildlife Protection Law, CITES listing
Modern conservation	2000s-present	Research loans, captive breeding success

Ruth Harkness stands at the pivot between the first two eras. She was an explorer of the old type — but her genuine love for Su Lin and her later advocacy pointed toward the conservation era that followed.

Entity Hub

Entity	Type	Role in Story
Ruth McCombs Harkness	Person	American socialite turned explorer; primary figure
William Harkness	Person	Ruth’s husband; died before completing his panda expedition
Su Lin	Panda	First live panda in the Western world
Quentin Young (Yang Kun-tin)	Person	Chinese-American explorer; organized the expedition
Zong Lin	Person	Young Chinese hunter who found Su Lin in the hollow tree
Brookfield Zoo	Institution	Su Lin’s home in Chicago (1936-1938)
Sichuan Province	Place	Mountain region where Su Lin was captured
Floyd Tangier Smith	Person	Hunter who captured 5 additional cubs after Su Lin
Field Museum	Institution	Where Su Lin’s preserved body resides in the research collection

More Questions About Ruth Harkness

Did Ruth Harkness ever return to China?

She returned briefly in 1938 on a speaking tour and visited pandas in other zoos. She died in 1947 at age 47 from complications related to alcoholism, having struggled with depression and financial difficulties after Su Lin’s death.

How did China view the Harkness expedition?

Chinese public opinion was mixed. Some viewed it as a colonial exploitation of Chinese wildlife. Others saw it as an adventure story. The Chinese government at the time (the Republic of China) issued permits for the capture, so it was technically legal. Modern Chinese accounts of panda history tend to emphasize the role of Chinese hunters and guides while noting the expedition’s role in sparking global panda interest.

What happened to the other pandas captured after Su Lin?

Most died within a few years. Zoo conditions in the 1930s and 1940s were inadequate for pandas. The few that survived longer — like Mei Mei at the London Zoo — became minor celebrities but suffered health problems. It was not until the late 20th century that zoos developed proper panda care protocols.

Was Ruth Harkness the first woman to lead a panda expedition?

Yes — and this was a major reason for the media attention. A woman leading a wilderness expedition was unusual in 1936. The press framed it as a “society woman’s adventure,” which both helped and harmed Ruth: it brought attention to her cause but also trivialized her achievement.

Your Turn

The next time you see a panda at a zoo — whether in Washington, Singapore, Edinburgh, or Chengdu — remember Su Lin. Remember that he was the first. Remember the woman who carried him out of the mountains. Remember the Chinese hunters who found him in a hollow tree. And remember that our relationship with pandas began with an act of taking — and is slowly, imperfectly, becoming an act of giving back.

The story of pandas in human care has come a long way since 1936. Better care. Better ethics. Better science. But it all traces back to one woman, one cub, and one hollow tree in the mountains of Sichuan.