Today, Xin Xin, the granddaughter of the two gifted pandas, is the last of her kind in Latin America and one of only three in the world not owned by China.
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In 1984, China ended panda gifts, switching to a policy of high-priced loans. This history has made Mexico one of a few countries able to keep locally born panda cubs. Since 1985, the loan program has required that zoos return any cubs to China.
The Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City is unique in that it's two giant panda residents, Xin Xin and Shuan Shuan are the only giant pandas in the world not owned by China.
A monthly celebration of the biodiversity of our planet's animals, plants and other organisms. Three US zoos currently host giant pandas: the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC has three, the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee has one and Zoo Atlanta in Georgia has four.
The San Diego Zoo returned its pandas in 2019, and the last bear at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo went home earlier this year. The departure of the National Zoo's bears would mean that the only giant pandas left in America are at the Atlanta Zoo — and that loan agreement expires late next year.
With diplomatic tensions running high between Beijing and a number of Western governments, China appears to be gradually pulling back its pandas from multiple Western zoos as their agreements expire.
China is the only natural habitat of the giant pandas; and Beijing has used the animals since the 1950s as part of its panda diplomacy programme. China has gifted and loaned pandas to other countries, and also taken them back when relations soured! Beijing gifted its first panda, Ping Ping, to the USSR in 1957.
American zoos do not actually own the pandas that we enjoy going to visit. China rents pandas out to the tune of $1 million a year. Zoos typically sign a 10-year contract, which means that at the end of that contract, a zoo will have spent $10 million renting one panda. And any cubs that are born while at the zoo?
Panda diplomacy, in its current form, works like this: China loans pandas to a zoo in the United States or another country, and the zoo pays an annual fee — usually $500,000 to $1 million each — to keep the pandas for at least a few years.
Pandas are only native to China, so all pandas in American zoos are on loan from the Chinese government. Even those born on American soil are considered property of China.
Don't expect new pandas to come to the San Diego Zoo anytime soon. The attraction will continue to highlight the status of this threatened species, thereby continuing its legacy even if pandas cubs are no longer in residence there.
China began to offer pandas to other nations only on ten-year lease. The standard lease terms include a fee of up to US$1 million per year and a provision that any cubs born during the lease period be the property of the People's Republic of China.