Ähtäri pandas|One person in Finland is more excited about the return of Ähtäri’s pandas than others. Olli Sahimäki from Ähtäri was not enthusiastic about pandas in the first place.
“YesI was the main opponent of the pandas”, Ähtäriläinen Olli Sahimäki give a laugh.
The main opponent now has reason to be happy, as the Ähtäri zoo announced on Monday evening to bring back the giant pandas to his home country China by the end of the year.
Even as a nationally known serial complainer titled Sahimäki opposed bringing Lum and Pyry to Ähtäri even before they set foot on Finnish soil. Over the years, he has processed several complaints related to the financing of the panda project to different levels of court.
His passionate opposition is due to the fact that he has suspected from the beginning that the pandas will be unnecessarily expensive for the municipality of Ähtäri.
Although they are now abandoned, he does not feel that he has fully succeeded in his goal.
“It’s nice that they’re leaving, but it doesn’t feel nice that the taxpayers are left with a huge debt burden. The decision was made too late.”
Ähtärin animal park has been in the headlines in recent years due to its financial difficulties. Last year, its financial result was a loss of more than 800,000 euros, the following year it was almost 1.6 million euros. Just bamboo has paid the zoo more than 200,000 euros per year.
According to Sahimäki, in the beginning no one was on his side.
“I was brave and alone I started to fight against the introduction of pandas. I was teased in public places that the man who opposes pandas is there.”
Now the other locals are dismayed by the huge debt burden, says Sahimäki.
Last year, he said he was going to go to the side of the road to wave goodbye to the pandas as they left. Is the plan still valid?
“I’m definitely going to have a blast!”
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