From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1997:

The zoo management and animal rights communities shared mixed
shock, outrage, and grief on December 17 at the revelation by Newsweek that
the San Diego Zoo and the Chengdu Zoo in Sichuan province, China, had concealed
since July the deaths from dehydration and exposure of two extremely rare
white rhinos whom the San Diego Zoo had purchased from the Pittsburgh Zoo,
then sent to China in a deal that looked mighty like an even-up swap for the two
pandas who arrived at the San Diego Zoo from China a few weeks later and went
on public display November 1. Though aware that the rhinos were going to China,
the Pittsburgh Zoo sold the rhinos to the San Diego Zoo in part because of the San
Diego Zoo’s internationally recognized rhino breeding and handling: 77 rhinos
have been born at the San Diego Zoological Society’s Wild Animal Park in
Escondido, and of the 67 rhinos the zoo has transported to other facilities, the
only previous death it acknowledged in the aftermath of the losses was a rhino who
was shipped to Taiwan 18 years ago. Pittsburgh Zoo rhino curator Les Nesler
escorted the pair as far as New York City, saw them safely aboard a commercial
Boeing 747 cargo flight to Shanghai, and believed all would be well. However,
the arrangements were two weeks behind schedule, and in that interval, heavy
flooding hit central and eastern China, complicating ground transportation.

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