Six months after Washington, D.C.’s National Zoo said goodbye to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, it’s preparing to welcome a new pair of giant pandas.
China has agreed to a 10-year lease of the pandas, which will run through April 2034. The zoo will pay the Chinese government $1 million a year to display the pandas. The news was a surprise, given the tense state of affairs between the U.S. and Chinese governments.
Bao Li and Qing Bao will be the zoo’s newest celebrities—and in an ironic twist, one of those pandas is actually the grandson (grandpanda?) of the pair that departed in 2023. They’re set to arrive by the end of the year.
“We’re thrilled to announce the next chapter of our breeding and conservation partnership begins by welcoming two new bears, including a descendent of our beloved panda family, to Washington, D.C.,” said Brandie Smith, John and Adrienne Mars director at the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, in a statement. “This historic moment is proof positive our collaboration with Chinese colleagues has made an irrefutable impact. Through this partnership, we have grown the panda population, advanced our shared understanding of how to care for this beloved bear and learned what’s needed to protect wild pandas and preserve native habitat.”
Bao Li, whose name means “treasure” and “energetic,” and Qing Bao, whose name means “green” and “treasure,” will be transported to the U.S. via FedEx on a dedicated flight and ground transportation. From there, they’ll be quarantined, per standard procedure, for 30 days, then allowed to settle into their new habitat for a few weeks before public viewings begin.
The public debut date will be announced closer to that time. The move follows China lending two panda bears to the San Diego Zoo earlier this year.
Panda diplomacy
Pandas were first loaned to the National Zoo by China during the Nixon administration, when formalized national relations between the two countries were formed. For decades, China has loaned pandas to countries it hoped to build ties with, a policy referred to as “panda diplomacy."
Last year, though, China rescinded those on loan, not only from the U.S. but also from zoos in Scotland. Tensions between the U.S. and China started to heighten during the Trump administration, when sanctions were added to many Chinese-made products, but have increasingly deteriorated. Washington has attempted to deprive China of cutting-edge computer chips, citing national security concerns.
Pandas are native to China, and zoos that host them are never given full custody. Instead, they “rent” them, paying hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to China each year. Long a member of the endangered species list, pandas are no longer considered at severe risk and were downgraded to “vulnerable” to the threat of extinction in 2021. The National Zoo estimates there are about 1,864 pandas living in the wild in China.
