Quan Quan

Basic Profile

Quan Quan (Chinese: 泉泉, studbook number 414), also known as Long Gu (龙古), was a female giant panda born in the wild in approximately 1990 in the mountains of Baoxing, Sichuan. She weighed about 130 kg.

She was renowned for her exceptional beauty — keepers called her “Wolong’s First Beauty” (卧龙第一美女) — with a perfectly round face, ginkgo-leaf-shaped ears, a short round muzzle, and unusually white fur.

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A Heroic Mother

Quan Quan gave birth to 5 litters and 7 cubs, earning the title of “Heroic Mother” (英雄母亲):

Cub	Studbook	Birth	Notes
Xi Mei (喜妹)	511	2000-08-08	Female
Xiang Xiang (祥祥)	588	2001-08-25	Male, first panda released to the wild
Fu Fu (福福)	589	2001-08-25	Male, twin of Xiang Xiang
Yang Guang (阳光)	564	2003-08-14	Male, traveled to Edinburgh Zoo
Xin Yue (新月)	565	2003-08-14	Female, twin of Yang Guang
Tong Tong (彤彤)	586	2004-08-30	Male

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Life at Jinan Zoo

In September 2007, Quan Quan was loaned to Jinan Zoo in Shandong — becoming the only giant panda in Shandong province at the time. On December 30, 2007, she was renamed “泉泉” (Quan Quan) — meaning “Spring” — from over 1,000 public name submissions, symbolizing her new home in the “City of Springs.”

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Tragic Death (July 22, 2010)

On the evening of July 22, 2010, a worker in a rented air-raid shelter adjacent to the panda house lit 优氯净 (sodium dichloroisocyanurate) to sterilize mushroom beds. The toxic fumes — containing lethal levels of chlorine (16.1 mg/m³, 16x the safety limit) and hydrogen chloride — seeped through a ventilation shaft directly into the panda enclosure.

Staff discovered the smoke at 6:50 PM and moved Quan Quan outside, but she had already inhaled fatal doses. Despite emergency efforts including CPR, oxygen therapy, and veterinary intervention from Jinan Military Hospital, she died at 10:00 PM. An autopsy confirmed pulmonary edema and respiratory failure from toxic gas inhalation.

The worker, Yang, was arrested for criminal negligence (重大责任事故罪). Quan Quan’s death sparked public outrage and mourning across China.

Legacy

Quan Quan’s son Xiang Xiang was the first captive panda ever released to the wild (2006). Her son Yang Guang lived at Edinburgh Zoo as the UK’s only panda. Her death exposed critical weaknesses in safety protocols at loan facilities and led to improved ventilation standards.