They will not be running for president or have won any Olympic medals, but two California celebrities are getting lots of attention this week.
The first recent pandas within the United States in 21 years – Yun Chuan, a five-year-old male, and Xin Bao, a four-year-old female – are causing a stir because the pair of giant pandas from China make their first public appearance on the San Diego Zoo on Thursday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom rode the wildlife wave on Wednesday, declaring Thursday “California Panda Day” and announcing that he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, will attend the opening of Panda Ridge on the San Diego Zoo. The recent habitat for the bears is 4 times the dimensions of the previous panda enclosure the famous Southern California zoo built for its last pair of pandas, which returned to China in 2019.
Since 1972, when China first loaned pandas to the National Zoo in Washington DC as an indication of kindness to former President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Nixon, the friendly ambassadors have been considered a crucial a part of diplomacy with the United States.
Following growing tensions between the 2 countries five years ago, China recalled a lot of its pandas from the United States. Today, the one remaining ones are on the Atlanta Zoo.
But now a rapprochement between the pandas appears to be underway.
Last November, during talks with President Biden on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China would send recent pandas to America as “envoys of friendship.”
In April, San Francisco Mayor London Breed signed an agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to bring two pandas to the San Francisco Zoo in 2025 after a panda enclosure is built there. The city is working to lift $25 million for the project by soliciting donations from outstanding firms and philanthropists – from SalesForce to Google.
“We are ready to welcome visitors from all over the world to our beautiful zoo,” Breed said in April. “This is a momentous opportunity and I am grateful for it. I know I join many who can't wait to see her in San Francisco.”
Likewise, the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute announced in May that two giant pandas will come to the zoo in Washington, DC by the tip of 2024.
The pair from San Diego arrived in late June. Zoo officials say they’ve adjusted well to their recent surroundings.
“(Yun Chuan) loves his bamboo. He's really comfortable in his habitat. He's exploring everything and he's curious,” Megan Owen, vp of wildlife and conservation science on the San Diego Zoo, told “Good Morning America” on Tuesday.
“We give each of our pandas a choice so they can tell us what they like best,” she said. “And we have to balance that with the type of bamboo that is most nutritious for the bears.”
Pandas typically grow to weigh as much as 113 kilograms and be 1.80 meters long. Due to deforestation and population growth in China, their home country, their numbers are slowly increasing because of conservation efforts. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded their status from “critically endangered” to “vulnerable.” Today, there are about 1,800 pandas living within the wild and over 200 in captivity.
San Diego Zoo and city officials are warning of heavy traffic in the primary few days around Balboa Park, where the zoo is positioned, and are urging visitors to make use of public transportation or carpool.
The zoo shouldn’t be disclosing what number of recent visitors it expects. China typically charges U.S. zoos $1 million a 12 months for 10 years to borrow the pandas. When pandas first got here to the San Diego Zoo in 1987, they attracted two million visitors that 12 months.
Officials in each countries hope the brand new couple will give birth to a cub.
The zoo plans to establish a “panda cam” soon so the general public can get a glimpse of the fluffy pair. Until then, zoo visitors can see the pandas by purchasing a timed ticket to Panda Ridge as a part of their zoo admission, joining a queue when those time slots are full, or by paying $92 to $115 per person for a special 60-minute early morning tour with a zoo expert.
For more information, see https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/giant-pandas/visit
Originally published:
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