In the 1970s, a gift from China sparked panda-mania in Mexico. Starting in the late 1950s, China gifted giant pandas to countries as a sign of friendship and diplomatic alliance.
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The encounter led him down a rabbit hole to 1970s Mexico, when the country had effectively recognized China's authority over Taiwan at the United Nations. Soon, other Latin American countries followed suit, and China gifted two giant pandas, Pe Pe and Ying Ying, to the Mexican zoo in 1975.
The animals are native to China. Xin Xin is a second-generation Mexican-born panda, with a lineage linked to Pe Pe and Ying Ying, who arrived at the zoo in 1975.
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.
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.
Twenty-eight of the 60 are in 10 European zoos. Most zoos have 2 or 3 pandas. The zoos with the most pandas are Adventure World in Japan with 6 and Pairi Daiza in Belgium with 5. Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand is the only zoo with a single panda.
China technically owns every panda in the world. The pandas are rented to zoos throughout the world for sometimes as much as one million dollars per year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Visitors can observe the panda bears undisturbed through large glass windows around the enclosure. The indoor areas are also accessible to visitors through a walkway. Berlin is welcoming to the two future darlings of the public, who are the only giant pandas in Germany after the death of panda male Bao Bao in 2012.
Beauval Zoo in the Loir-et-Cher department has been voted one of the most beautiful zoos in the world. In France it's famous for its giant pandas amongst much else. 35,000 animals from all over the world inhabit the zoo.
Many countries have no pandas. Some have just one or two, in the hopes that they might breed. South Korea now has five, thanks to the births on Tuesday of twin cubs at Everland theme park just outside Seoul.
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.