The last U.S. zoo housing pandas expects to say goodbye to the four giant bears this fall.
Zoo Atlanta is preparing to return panda parents Runrun and Yanyan and American-born twins Yarun and Xilun to China, zoo officials announced Friday. A specific date for the transfer has not yet been set, but it will likely take place between October and December, they said.
Kate Brumbach/Associated Press
The four pandas in Atlanta are the last in the United States since the National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China last November.those pandas I flew to China on November 8th. The 24 animals then landed in Chengdu, where China’s National Zoo is located. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were seconded for research and breeding programs. In 2020, the couple had a baby named Xiao Qi Ji, who also returned to China. The giant panda had to be trucked with a forklift to the airport, where it boarded a special flight carrying the following “treats”: Approximately 220 pounds Bamboo.
The pandas were sent to Washington, D.C., to save the species through breeding, and the couple have been kept at the zoo ever since.
Karen Breyer (via Getty Images)
Other US zoos are also sending pandas back to China after loan agreements expired amid heightened diplomatic tensions between the two countries. In addition to the Atlanta Zoo and the Washington DC Zoo, the Memphis Zoo and the San Diego Zoo are the only other zoos in the United States that house giant pandas. Memphis returned its last surviving panda in April 2023. San Diego returned the pandas in 2019, more than 30 years after the first couple arrived in 1987.
Atlanta acquired Lun Lun and Yang Yang from China in 1999 as part of a 25-year loan deal that was soon to expire.
Born in 2016, Ya Lung and Shi Lung are the youngest of seven pandas born at Zoo Atlanta since their parents arrived. Their siblings are already in the care of China’s Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Center.
America could welcome a new pair of pandas before the Atlanta pandas leave. The San Diego Zoo announced last month that its staff recently traveled to China and met pandas Yunchuan and Xin Bao. The pair could arrive in California as early as this summer.San Francisco Zoo too Recently signed in April A memorandum of understanding was signed with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to bring pandas to zoos. Although pandas were briefly kept at the zoo in the 1980s, this agreement marks the first time pandas have been kept at the San Francisco Zoo.
Zoo Atlanta officials said in a news release that they should be able to share “significant advance notice” before the pandas depart. As for whether Atlanta might accept pandas in the future, “discussions with our Chinese partners have not yet taken place,” zoo officials said.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are more than 1,800 pandas left in the wild, and although breeding programs are increasing their numbers, their survival is still considered to be at serious risk.
Report contributed by Caitlin O’Kane.
