The first video since two new giant pandas who were loaned from China to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., was released Saturday. Bao Li and Qing Bao will make their public debut in January.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Two giant pandas were on the way from China to Washington on Monday less than a year after the National Zoo said goodbye to a pandas on loan from China.
The pandas — Bao Li and Qing Bao — departed Chengdu and are scheduled to arrive in Anchorage just before 10 p.m. local time, according to plane tracker FlightAware. From there, the bears will head to Dulles, with a landing scheduled around 9:55 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
“Something *giant* is coming to Washington, D.C. via the @FedEx Panda Express,” the National Zoo said in a Monday post on social media. “The Zoo will be closed to the public tomorrow, Oct. 15. For the safety of the pandas and staff, we will not disclose any additional timing.”
Giant panda Qing Bao, born Sept. 12, 2021, at the Dujiangyan Panda Center.
Roshan Patel/National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
The National Zoo first received pandas from China in 1972 after President Richard Nixon’s trip to China to open diplomatic and trade relations between the U.S. and China. China “has used pandas to pursue diplomatic objectives, a practice termed panda diplomacy,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
China in 2000 sent Mei Xiang and Tian Tian to the National Zoo as part of an agreement with the China Wildlife and Conservation Association. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were supposed to stay in the U.S. for 10 years, but the agreement was extended several times. The pair of pandas in 2020 had a cub, Xiao Qi Ji.
Xiao Qi Ji and his parents were returned to China in November of last year. After they left, Zoo Atlanta was the only zoo in the U.S. with giant pandas. Their pandas are set to return to China at some point this year.
Then giant pandas returned to the San Diego Zoo this summer for the first time since 2019. And in May, first lady Dr. Jill Biden joined Smithsonian officials to announce pandas were coming back to the nation’s capital.
Bao Li, a 2-year-old male, was born in Sichuan to father An An and mother Bao Bao. He already has ties to the U.S.: Bao Li’s mother was born at the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in 2013 and his grandparents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, lived at the National Zoo from 2000 to 2023.
Qing Bao, the female panda headed to the U.S., is also 2 years old.
The pandas will be quarantined for at least 30 days after they arrive at the National Zoo, according to the facility. Quarantine will allow the zoo to reduce the risk of introducing parasites or disease to other animals.
They’ll then have a few more weeks to settle into their new home before their public debut. The Smithsonian Zoo has not yet shared a public debut, only saying that it will be announced “as soon as the animal care team feels the bears are ready to meet visitors.”
The giant panda is currently listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.
Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for “60 Minutes” and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.
The last U.S. zoo with pandas in its care expects to say goodbye to the four giant bears this fall.
Zoo Atlanta is making preparations to return panda parents Lun Lun and Yang Yang to China along with their American-born twins Ya Lun and Xi Lun, zoo officials said Friday. There is no specific date for the transfer yet, they said, but it will likely happen between October and December.
One of four panda bears at Zoo Atlanta rests in their habitat on Dec. 30, 2023, in Atlanta.
Kate Brumback / AP
The four Atlanta pandas have been the last in the United States since the National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China last November. Those pandas flew to China on Nov. 8 and 24 later landed in Chengdu where the Chinese National Zoo is located. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were on loan for a research and breeding program. In 2020 the couple had a baby named Xiao Qi Ji, who also returned to China. Forklifts had to move the giant pandas to the airport in trucks where they boarded a special flight with “snacks,” including around 220 pounds of bamboo.
Pandas were first sent to D.C. to save the species by breeding them, and couples have been kept at the zoo ever since.
Giant panda Mei Xiang and her cub Bei Bei(R) play in their enclosure August 24, 2016 at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
Karen Bleier via Getty Images
Other American zoos have sent pandas back to China as loan agreements lapsed amid heightened diplomatic tensions between the two nations. In addition to Atlanta and Washington D.C. zoos, the Memphis Zoo and the San Diego Zoo were the only others in the U.S. to have housed giant pandas. Memphis returned its last surviving panda in April 2023. San Diego returned its pandas in 2019 more than three decades after the first couple’s arrival in 1987.
Atlanta received Lun Lun and Yang Yang from China in 1999 as part of a 25-year loan agreement that will soon expire.
Ya Lun and Xi Lun, born in 2016, 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 Research Center of Giant Panda Breeding.
It is possible that America will welcome a new panda pair before the Atlanta bears depart. The San Diego Zoo said last month that staff members recently traveled to China to meet pandas Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, which could arrive in California as soon as this summer. San Francisco Zoo also recently signed in April a memorandum of understanding with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to bring pandas to the zoo. In the 1980s pandas were briefly hosted at the zoo, but the agreement marks the first time pandas will reside at San Francisco Zoo.
Zoo Atlanta officials said in a news release they should be able to share “significant advance notice” before their pandas leave. As to whether Atlanta might see host any future pandas, “no discussions have yet taken place with partners in China,” zoo officials said.
There are just over 1,800 pandas left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and although breeding programs have increased their numbers, the panda’s survival is still considered at severe risk.
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Zoo is set to receive a pair of giant pandas under a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday by Mayor London Breed and the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
The announcement that pandas would be coming to the zoo did not include a timeline but the mayor’s office said it would hinge on completion of a panda enclosure. Planning has begun and engineers from the Beijing Zoo traveled to the city to meet with zoo engineers this week, according to Breed.
In the 1980s, the zoo temporarily hosted pandas from China as part of a global tour but Thursday’s announcement marks the first official lease agreement for the rare animals to reside at San Francisco Zoo.
Breed said having pandas at the zoo “will strengthen our already deep cultural connection and honors our Chinese and API heritage that is core to San Francisco’s history.”
Three giant pandas departed the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. back to China, an indication of colder ties between the two nations and marking the end of more than 50 years of Chinese pandas being housed at the zoo. What do you think?
“Who will we artificially inseminate now?”
Catya Tate, Votive Distributor
This Week’s Most Viral News: Veterans Day Edition
“So there are three job openings?”
Ian Linden, Dolly Puller
“Maybe we can borrow some animals from Iran instead.”
A giant panda on long-term loan from China died in a zoo in northern Thailand on Wednesday, six months before she was due to return home, officials from the Chiang Mai Zoo said.
The cause of Lin Hui’s death was not immediately clear but she appeared to have become ill Tuesday morning, and her nose was seen bleeding when she laid down after a meal, said Wutthichai Muangmun, the zoo director.
She was rushed into the care of a joint Thai-Chinese veterinarian team but her condition deteriorated and she died early Wednesday morning, he said.
Chinese giant panda Lin Hui at the Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand on Jan. 16, 2023.
Pongmanat Tasiri/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Tewarat Vejmanat, a veterinarian who spoke at a news conference broadcast live on the zoo’s Facebook page, said the panda, who had a health check every day, was already at an advanced age at 21, and there had been no sign of illness or any difference in her behavior before she became sick.
“China is saddened by the death of the giant panda Lin Hui,” Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said in Beijing.
Wang said that after China learned about the panda’s illness it “immediately organized experts to guide the Thai side to carry out rescue work through video link, but unfortunately did not save her life.” He added that the Chinese authorities would soon set up a team of experts to carry out a joint investigation into the cause of death.
Lin Hui’s male mate, Chuang Chuang, who was kept with her at the Chiang Mai Zoo, died there in 2019 at the age of 19. The couple arrived in Chiang Mai in 2003 on a 10-year loan that was later extended for another 10 years.
While the loan was ostensibly for research and conservation purposes, it was generally regarded as an act of friendship by China, which has sent pandas to many countries in what is regarded as a striking example of soft power diplomacy.
When Chuang Chuang died in 2019, Thailand’s then-Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa said the country had to pay $500,000 to the Chinese government in compensation. It was later reported that heart failure was the cause of his death.
Zoo director Wutthichai said the zoo has a 15-million-baht ($435,000) insurance policy on Lin Hui, who was due to be returned to China this October.
Lin Hui and Chuang Chuang had a daughter, Lin Ping, in 2009 through artificial insemination. A scheme to encourage them to mate naturally by showing them videos of pandas having sex made headlines in 2007. Lin Ping was sent to China in 2013 in what was initially said to be a one-year visit for her to find a mate, but has remained there.
The life expectancy of a giant panda in the wild is about 15 years, but in captivity they have lived to be as old as 38. Decades of conservation efforts in the wild and study in captivity saved the giant panda species from extinction, increasing its population from fewer than 1,000 at one time to more than 1,800 in the wild and captivity.
A Chinese influencer living in Thailand who identified herself as Shanshan visited the zoo Tuesday morning and posted several videos of Lin Hui on the Chinese social media platform Douyin. One of them showed her nose, which appeared bloody, and a red spot could be seen on her neck. In another clip, she was lying down while licking her nose, and there were red stain trails on a concrete slab beneath her head. Screenshots from the videos were widely shared by Thai social media users.
The cause of Lin Hui’s death will take time before it can be determined, Wutthichai said, and how and when that would be revealed will be entirely up to China. Under an agreement between the zoo and the Chinese government’s panda conservation project, an autopsy cannot be performed until a Chinese expert is present.
