People in Washington were saddened this week by the death of a local favorite. By all accounts, so were people much farther afield -- as far away even as China, where the deceased was born 28 years ago. If that sounds young, it wasn't: This was no scion of an American dynasty, no rising political star, no rock or movie icon cut off in his youth by drugs or daring. This was a big, old, sick mammal with rakish black eye patches and stubby limbs, who lived at the National Zoo and did nothing much all day except chow down on bamboo and Starbucks' blueberry muffins and waddle about having his picture taken. This was Hsing-Hsing, Washington's one remaining giant panda.

When the decision was taken last Sunday to euthanize Hsing-Hsing because he was suffering greatly from a variety of ailments, including arthritis and kidney failure, mourning in the U.S. capital was reportedly near-universal. The Washington Post wrote next day that "sadness at the loss of an old friend" was being expressed not just by the panda's keepers and the city's children, but by such normally unsentimental people as politicians, diplomats, businessmen and even reporters.

From one angle, such grief may seem disproportionate, even a touch hypocritical. Human beings' love of animals is a notoriously selective thing. Just days before Hsing-Hsing was so tenderly "put to sleep," tens of millions of Americans had sat down to Thanksgiving turkey dinners, oblivious to the thought of how inhumane, by comparison, the deaths of those creatures had been. In many countries, including Japan, pet owners treat their cats and dogs as if they were miniature people, but see no contradiction in routinely cooking and eating other, potentially lovable animals, such as chickens and pigs and cows, that have been raised and slaughtered en masse specifically for humans' dining pleasure.