Call it Panda-mania 2.0: The National Zoo announced Wednesday that a new pair of the crowd-pleasing Chinese imports — long the park’s most popular attraction — will arrive in the District later this year.
The city’s most recent group of pandas, father Tian Tian, 26, mother Mei Xiang, 25, and 3-year-old male Xiao Qi Ji, left Washington and were sent back to China in November, as stipulated in a 2020 agreement between the National Zoo and Chinese conservation officials.
Some took their departure as a barometer of plunging relations between Beijing and Washington, but it left the city’s legion of panda lovers bereft.
Now, a new breeding pair, male Bao Li, 2, and female Qing Bao, 2, are being sent to the Washington zoo. Bao Li, the Smithsonian Institution said, is the grandchild of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang. Both pandas hail from China’s Sichuan province, which hosts natural panda habitat and Chinese state-run panda enclosures.
“It’s official. The pandas are coming back to D.C.,” first lady Jill Biden announced in a video from the National Zoo.
Panda lovers across the region cheered the news.
“I’m really happy they’re coming back,” said Ashlyn Buono, an eighth-grader from New Jersey who was visiting the zoo on a field trip Wednesday. “I grew up with a giant stuffed panda that our neighbors gave me.”
The first pandas sent to the National Zoo in 1972, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, died without reproducing successfully. Tian Tian and Mei Xiang were sent in 2000. In their more than 20 years in Washington, they produced four healthy cubs: male Tai Shan, who was sent back to China in 2010; female Bao Bao, who was sent back in 2017; male Bei Bei, who went back in 2019; and male Xiao Qi Ji, who left last year with his parents.
Bao Li is Bao Bao’s son, zoo officials said.
“We’re thrilled to announce the next chapter of our breeding and conservation partnership begins by welcoming two new bears, including a descendant of our beloved panda family,” said Brandie Smith, the John and Adrienne Mars director of the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
The National Zoo has been involved in panda breeding and conservation for more than 50 years, and Bao Li and Qing Bao could be in for a lengthy stay. An agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association will continue the program through 2034.
Under the terms of the agreement, adults belong to China, and any cubs will be sent back to China before they turn 4. The National Zoo will pay the China Wildlife Conservation Association a $1 million yearly fee unconnected to federal funding, the Smithsonian said.
“The new round of China-U.S. international cooperation on giant panda conservation will surely achieve more results in the prevention and treatment of major giant panda diseases … and make new contributions to … the enhancement of friendship between the two peoples,” the conservation association said in a statement as translated from Mandarin.
When they arrive in the U.S., Bao Li and Qing Bao will be quarantined for 30 days and then acclimated to their new habitat before they are introduced to the viewing public.
The National Zoo is soliciting $25 million in donations to upgrade the indoor and outdoor panda exhibits and the giant panda cam, which is used for livestreaming.
Construction has been continuing at the panda habitats since November. New features will include rock structures with pools of water, bamboo stands, structures to climb and toys to enhance the thinking and physical skills of the young pandas, zoo officials said.
The recall of pandas from zoos across the U.S. last year was widely seen as an indication of deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington, but China’s official press has said little about the state of “panda diplomacy.”
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in November at an Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco seeking to ease bilateral frictions.
“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation. … I was told that many American people, especially children, were really reluctant to say goodbye to the pandas and went to the zoo to see them off,” Mr. Xi said in a speech at the time.
Xie Feng, Chinese ambassador to the United States, told the Reuters news agency that the new panda agreement was “a very good sign” for U.S.-China relations.
At the zoo and across the panda-verse, the excitement was palpable.
D.C. resident Ricardo Rivas told The Washington Times, “I can’t wait because we were sad to see them go.”
Staffers have posted signs at the zoo announcing the upcoming panda arrivals.
“Hooray Best news!! Thank you!! One is Bao Bao’s son — the very panda my young daughter — at the time — watched grow up. I’m crying,” commenter Jackie Kempinska said on the zoo’s Facebook post of the announcement video.
The D.C. Council posted a version of the city’s flag with its three stars replaced by panda heads, writing, “Looking forward to putting the ‘panda’ back in the Nation’s Ca-panda-l!”
“It connects me to my Chinese heritage and the one time I visited pandas at the Beijing zoo with my family,” Charlie Yang, 28, of Boston, told The Times.
“It’s different and definitely makes the zoo stand out,” said Mr. Yang’s girlfriend, Celina Hollmichael, 24.
Not everyone is pleased about the return of the pandas. One social media user decried the costs.
“I wish American zoos would use their resources to help endangered native species instead of paying enormous sums to fly exotic, high-maintenance pandas here from the other side of the planet,” user @MrTinDC wrote on X.
Frequent zoo visitor and Northwest D.C. denizen Miles Gooden, 28, worried that the endangered pandas were a sort of geopolitical football.
“I’m excited about the conservation efforts and seeing pandas again, but I’m sad we treat them like Chinese citizens and geopolitical pawns,” he said. “I just worry about what’s best for the pandas.”
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