Why are the pandas leaving Washington DC zoo?

The potential end of the National Zoo's panda era comes amid what veteran China-watchers say is a larger trend. 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.



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Edinburgh Zoo's giant pandas will finally return to China in December, it has been announced. Tian Tian and Yang Guang have to go back under the terms of a 10-year loan, which was extended by two years due to the Covid pandemic. The pair have failed to produce offspring since their arrival in 2011.

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Former San Diego Zoo panda keeper Dallas Dumont explains that the giant pandas were never expected to remain here forever. “We knew when we started the program that they were not our bears and that they wouldn't be staying… China believes in having their animals retire back in their country.”

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The giant pandas left the San Diego Zoo a few weeks ago after the zoo's successful giant panda conservation program with China came to an end. That end meant Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu, the final two Giant Pandas left at the San Diego Zoo, would have to be repatriated to China.

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There are two giant pandas here at Edinburgh Zoo - Yang Guang and Tian Tian. Yang Guang is our male panda whose name means Sunshine in Mandarin and Tian Tian is our female panda whose name means Sweetie.

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Tian Tian and Yang Guang are the pandas that are housed in Edinburgh Zoo in the UK. They live in 275,000 pounds suites and have organic food flown in from the Continent. They are on loan from China and will return in 2023.

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Chi Chi (Chinese: ??; pinyin: Ji Ji; September 1954 – 22 July 1972) was a well-known female giant panda at London Zoo in England. Chi Chi was not London Zoo's first giant panda; Ming was one of four that arrived in 1938.

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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.

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Britain will lose its last two pandas in December, as will Australia next year if an existing agreement is not extended. There are currently no agreements to replace any of them.

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The Chinese government, which gifted the first pair of pandas - Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling - to the U.S., now leases the pandas out for a typical 10-year renewable term. The annual fee ranges from $1 million to $2 million per pair, plus mandatory costs to build and maintain facilities to house the animals.

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There used to be more pandas at zoos around the world, including St. Louis, but China's population boom and several famines after World War II that led to hunting them for food led to far lower numbers. In the early 1960's China set up a nature reserve to protect the Giant Panda.

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The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) has announced that giant pandas Yang Guang and Tian Tian will return to China in early December 2023.

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L ondon Zoo's three elephants, involved in the recent crushing to death of a keeper, are leaving the capital, ending a 170-year presence at the Regent's Park site.

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As a gesture of goodwill following President Nixon's seminal state visit, Premier Enlai gifted two giant pandas to the American people. Nestled in the Nation's Capital and with free admission, the President and Mrs. Nixon selected the Smithsonian's National Zoo as the home for the giant panda bears.

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That's because almost all pandas, even ones born abroad, are considered the property of China—as part of a loan program it has with selected zoos around the world. The newly born female twin pandas at Everland Amusement and Animal Park in Yongin, on July 7.

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