Starbucks muffins soothe ailing Hsing-Hsing

By James V. Grimaldi

WASHINGTON - Hsing-Hsing, the National Zoo's famed giant panda and the world's most popular zoo animal, is being kept alive with blueberry muffins. And Hsing-Hsing won't eat just any blueberry muffins - only Starbucks' blueberry muffins will do.

Zoo officials made that discovery last month after veterinarians diagnosed Hsing-Hsing with a failing kidney and he stopped eating a daily sweet potato laced with his arthritis medicine. Desperate, veterinarian Lucy Spelman a couple of weeks ago began putting a crushed pill in a muffin.

"This is a panda who only feels as well as he does because of all the medication he is getting," Spelman said.

If he doesn't take the medication, Spelman said he won't eat or drink anything else. If he doesn't eat or drink, he won't stay hydrated, which is crucial to keeping his kidneys going.

`Ooooh, that's really good'

Zookeeper Brenda Morgan originally discovered Hsing-Hsing's affinity for blueberry muffins. It happened one day when Morgan was drinking her morning coffee and eating a muffin from Starbucks.

Morgan, who describes herself as a Starbucks "addict," said Hsing-Hsing's keen sense of smell kicked in and he moved his head her way.

"He was like, `What do you have? What do you have?' " Morgan said. She gave him a taste, and his body language said, according to Morgan, "Ooooh, that's really good."

Hsing-Hsing has refused store-bought muffins, frozen muffins, any non-Starbucks muffins. "And the fat-free ones?" Morgan added. "Forget it."

Soon, zookeepers, veterinarians and curators took turns shuttling to a nearby Starbucks. Once the store manager found out, he began setting aside free day-old blueberry muffins for Hsing-Hsing.

The news delighted Mark Brown, the Starbucks food scientist who led the team that developed the recipe at the coffee chain's Seattle headquarters. The blueberry muffin quickly became the anchor of the menu.

"The panda has great taste," Brown said. "He picked the No. 1 seller in the line" of pastries.

Keeping him happy at life's end

The medicated muffins, however, are merely helping to delay the inevitable.

Hsing-Hsing is dying. He is expected to die from kidney failure or related ailments. Zoo officials are "maintaining his physiology," trying to keep him happy and comfortable and to extend his life as long as feasible, said Lisa Stevens, assistant curator of the zoo.

Arriving in 1972 after President Richard Nixon's breakthrough visit to China, Hsing-Hsing and his now-deceased partner, Ling-Ling, were gifts to mark the historic opening of relations. Hsing-Hsing, estimated to be 28 years old, has lived well beyond the expected life span of pandas.

Zoo officials hope to obtain another pair from China, where only about 1,000 of the animals remain in the wild.

But unlike Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, which were gifts, China now is "leasing" pandas to zoos around the world to help pay for a $100 million program to preserve panda habitats and save the endangered species.

The National Zoo, which charges no admission, believes it is at a financial disadvantage compared to Zoo Atlanta, which recently announced it would get two pandas in October, and the San Diego Zoo, which already has a pair.

As a result, some worry that Hsing-Hsing's death might also mean the end of pandas in the nation's capital.

`It's not health food'

Earlier this week, zookeepers had difficulty getting Hsing-Hsing to eat the muffin. Veterinarian Spelman had the panda put under anesthesia and given fluids intravenously.

By yesterday morning, Hsing-Hsing was feeling better. He picked up the muffin with his mouth and downed it in less than a minute.

"I don't usually like the creatures to get high-sugar, high-fat food," Spelman said. "But fat is not a problem for him. And we can hide the medicine in the muffin ball so well because it is so fatty."

Brown of Starbucks prefers to think the reason for Hsing-Hsing's preference is lots of fresh blueberries and the "moistness" of the muffin. For the record, the muffin has 380 calories and 19 grams of fat.

"It's not health food," Brown acknowledges. "But it tastes real good."

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