Beloved giant pandas debut to public at National Zoo as historic partnership continues

The Nationwide Zoo in Washington, D.C., offered its two new large pandas to the general public on Friday.

Bao Li and Qing Bao are 3 years outdated. They are a part of a conservation program and a historical partnership between the U.S. and China that is going again part a century.

Historical past of panda international relations

In 1972, President Richard Nixon and primary woman Pat Nixon made a historical travel to China. In a while after, China proficient two large pandas to the U.S. to have fun the nations bettering ties.

What started as an act of international relations has developed into a systematic partnership between the U.S. and China, bringing in combination researchers and conservationists from all over the world so to save the dwindling collection of pandas international.

Go back to the Nationwide Zoo

The Panda Area on the National Zoo has been empty for greater than a 12 months after Tian Tian, Mei Xiang and Xiao Qi Ji had been despatched again to China in November 2023 when a prior settlement between the U.S. and China expired.

Tian Tian and Mei Xiang arrived in 2000. In 2020, the pair had a cub, Xiao Qi Ji.

However the heartbreak of the cherished animals’ leaving was once brief lived. 

In Might 2024, the Smithsonian and the China Flora and fauna Conservation Affiliation introduced a brand new settlement to convey pandas again to Washington, D.C., for no less than the following decade.

The cute animals have attracted tens of millions of tourists to the Nationwide Zoo, starting from first households to college box journeys.

The zoo’s latest occupants arrived on a FedEx airplane in October and took a couple of months to settle in prior to making their public debuts.

How the partnership with China works

The zoo will pay its Chinese language companions $1 million a 12 months to deal with the pandas. The cash is going at once to panda conservation efforts in China.

With the pandas comes different perks for the zoo: An additional bump in guests and in-park income. 

“We’ve got been looking ahead to this for a actually very long time,” stated panda fan Wyatt Brewer.

For individuals who can not make it to the Nationwide Zoo to look the pandas in individual, the zoo is relaunching its Panda Cam.

Caitlin Huey-Burns

Caitlin Huey-Burns is a political correspondent for CBS Information and a fill-in anchor for the CBS Information 24/7 politics display “The united states Comes to a decision.”