BEIJING (AP) - A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.
The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot (2-meter) -high fence around the panda's habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name.
The park in Guilin, a popular tourist town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, houses a small zoo and a panda exhibit. It was virtually deserted when the student scaled the fence surrounding the panda, named Yang Yang, the employee said.
He said the student was bitten in the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.
The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clear-headed, he said.
"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
If only the panda made bamboo shoot out of him, what a brilliant display of Darwinism at work it would be for all the families at the zoo. In fact, I have a brilliant idea. We should let as many pandas as possible out in the public. They're docile enough to leave us alone. But the cute, cuddly appearance will bait in the idiots, while the grizzly mother nature instinct of the animal should take care of the rest.