Panda diplomacy is again as China lends 2 bears to San Diego Zoo

The China Wildlife Conservation Affiliation not too long ago signed cooperation agreements with zoos in San Diego and Madrid, the Spanish capital, and is in talks with zoos Washington, D.C. and Vienna, China’s government-run Xinhua Information Company mentioned Thursday, describing the offers as a brand new spherical of collaboration on panda conservation.

San Diego Zoo officers informed The Related Press that if all permits and different necessities are accredited, two bears, a male and a feminine, are anticipated to reach as early as the tip of summer season, about 5 years after the zoo despatched its final pandas again to China.

“We’re very excited and hopeful,” mentioned Megan Owen of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and vp of Wildlife Conservation Science. “They’ve expressed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to re-initiate panda cooperation starting with the San Diego Zoo.”

Zoos usually pay a charge of $1 million a yr for 2 pandas, with the cash earmarked for China’s conservation efforts, in line with a 2022 report by America’s Congressional Analysis Service.

In November, Chinese language President Xi Jinping raised hopes his nation would begin sending pandas to the U.S. once more after he and President Joe Biden convened in Northern California for his or her first face-to-face meeting in a year and pledged to attempt to scale back tensions.

China is contemplating a pair that features a feminine descendent of Bai Yun and Gao Gao, two of the zoo’s former residents, mentioned Owen, an professional in panda habits who has labored in San Diego and China.

Bai Yun, who was born in captivity in China, lived on the zoo for greater than 20 years and gave start to 6 cubs there. She and her son had been the zoo’s final pandas and returned to China in 2019.

Gao Gao was born within the wild in China and lived on the San Diego Zoo from 2003 to 2018 earlier than being despatched again.

A long time of conservation efforts within the wild and examine in captivity saved the large panda species from extinction, growing its inhabitants from fewer than 1,000 at one time to greater than 1,800 within the wild and captivity.

The black-and-white bears have lengthy been the image of the U.S.-China friendship since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the Nationwide Zoo in Washington, D.C., in 1972, forward of the normalization of bilateral relations. China later loaned pandas to zoos to assist breed cubs and enhance the inhabitants.

The U.S., Spain and Austria had been the primary nations to work with China on panda conservation, and 28 pandas have been born in these nations, the Xinhua report mentioned. The most recent collaboration will embody analysis on illness prevention and habitat safety, and contribute to China’s nationwide panda park development, it mentioned.

“We look forward to further expanding the research outcomes on the conservation of endangered species such as giant pandas, and promoting mutual understanding and friendship among peoples through the new round of international cooperation,” Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning mentioned in Beijing.

Calls for for the return of large pandas, often called China’s “national treasure,” grew among the many Chinese language public as unproven allegations that U.S. zoos mistreated the pandas flooded Chinese language social media.

Fears over the future of so-called panda diplomacy escalated final yr when zoos in Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., returned their pandas to China, leaving solely 4 pandas in the USA, all on the zoo in Atlanta. That mortgage settlement expires later this yr.

Many mortgage agreements had been for 10 years and infrequently had been prolonged effectively past. However negotiations final yr to increase the agreements with U.S. zoos or ship extra pandas didn’t produce outcomes. China watchers speculated that Beijing was gradually pulling its pandas from Western nations as a consequence of deteriorating diplomatic relations with the U.S. and different nations.

Then on Nov. 15, 2023, every week after the Nationwide Zoo’s pandas departed for China, Xi spoke at a dinner in downtown San Francisco with American enterprise executives and signaled that more pandas might be sent. He mentioned he discovered the San Diego Zoo and folks in California “very much look forward to welcoming pandas back.”

“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,” Xi mentioned.

The San Diego Zoo continued to work with their Chinese language counterparts even after it now not had any pandas.

Owen mentioned China is especially desirous about exchanging info on the zoo’s profitable breeding of pandas in captivity. Big pandas are tough to breed partly as a result of the feminine’s reproductive window is extraordinarily slender, lasting solely 48 to 72 hours annually.

Bai Yun’s first cub, Hua Mei, was additionally the primary panda born via synthetic insemination to outlive into maturity exterior of China, and would go on to supply 12 cubs on her personal after she was despatched to China.

Bai Yun, in the meantime, remained on the zoo the place she gave start to 2 extra females and three males. With cameras in her den, researchers monitored her, contributing to the understanding of maternal care habits, Owen mentioned.

“We have a lot of institutional knowledge and capacity from our last cooperative agreement, which we will be able to parlay into this next chapter, as well as training the next generation of panda conservationists,” she mentioned.

Chinese language specialists would journey with the bears and spend months in San Diego, Owen mentioned.

She mentioned the return of the bears shouldn’t be solely good for San Diego however the large panda’s restoration as a species.

“We do talk about panda diplomacy all the time,” Owen mentioned. “Diplomacy is a critical part of conservation in any number of contexts. …. If we can’t learn to work together, you know, in sometimes difficult situations or situations that are completely out of the control of conservationists, then we’re not going to succeed.”