To stop relations between the two countries from starting to deteriorate, China plans to send a new pair of giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo, reaffirming its longstanding gesture of friendship to the United States, as nearly all of the iconic pandas previously lent to the U.S. zoo have been returned.
San Diego zoo staff said that if all permits and other requirements are approved, two pandas, one male and one female, are expected to arrive as early as late this summer, and the zoo will return the pandas to China in about five years.
We are very excited and hopeful for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife AllianceMegan OwenThe vice president of wildlife conservation science said they expressed great enthusiasm for the reintroduction of pandas starting at the San Diego Zoo.
China has pledged to provide the United States with giant pandas on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and China is considering sending a pair of pandas to the United States, including the offspring of Bai Yun, who was born in captivity in China and lived in a zoo for more than 20 years, where he gave birth to six cubs. Gao Gao was born in the wild in China and lived at the San Diego Zoo from 2003 to 2018 before being sent back.
Decades of conservation work and captive research have saved the giant panda species from extinction, with its population increasing from less than 1,000 at a time to more than 1,800 in the wild and in captivity. The black and white panda has long been a symbol of U.S.-China friendship since 1972, when Beijing gifted a pair of giant pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., before the normalization of bilateral relations. China later lent giant pandas to zoos to help breed cubs and increase populations.
The news of the return of the giant pandas, known as China's "national treasures," is gaining traction among the Chinese public, as unconfirmed reports of panda abuse at U.S. zoos flood Chinese social networks**. Last year, zoos in Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., returned giant pandas to China, leaving only four pandas in the United States, all at zoos in Atlanta, escalating concerns about the future of so-called panda diplomacy.
Owen said China is particularly interested in exchanging information about zoos' success in keeping giant pandas in captivity. Giant pandas are difficult to reproduce, in part because female pandas have a very narrow breeding window, lasting only 48 to 72 hours per year.