Giant pandas have been the stars of U.S. zoos since 1972, but unless things change dramatically in the coming months, the popular black-and-white round bears will no longer be at any U.S. zoos as China cancels loans to the animals .
The National Zoo announced that three giant pandas – Tiantian, Mei Xiang and Xiao Qiji – will return to China in early December after unsuccessful attempts to renew their three-year contracts.Memphis Zoo has Yaya is back alreadyThe panda has spent the past 20 years in Tennessee.So does San Diego. zoo.
Zoo Atlanta’s four giant pandas may be the last bears seen, but they are expected to return to China Sometime in 2024.
The panda recall comes amid growing tensions between China and the United States.
Tensions began to rise during the Trump administration, with many Chinese-made products subject to sanctions, but the situation has worsened day by day. Washington is trying to deprive China of cutting-edge computer chips, citing national security concerns. There is growing talk of decoupling the two countries, which could have serious economic implications for both countries and the world. (U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned in April that “a total separation of our economies would be catastrophic for both countries.”) It could also be catastrophic for panda fans at the zoo.
Concerns have not been assuaged by the Biden White House’s insistence that plans to limit U.S. semiconductor investment in China and access restrictions are “risk reduction,” not decoupling.
Panda Diplomacy
When the two countries formally established national relations, the Nixon administration loaned giant pandas to the National Zoo for the first time. For decades, China has loaned pandas to countries it wanted to build relations with, a policy known as “panda diplomacy.”
Now, however, it has scrapped those rules not only from zoos in the US but also from Scotland.
Giant pandas are native to China, and the zoos that house them have never been fully supervised. Instead, they “lease” them, paying China hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. As a member of the endangered species list, the giant panda is no longer considered to be seriously threatened and has been downgraded to a “vulnerable” species, facing the threat of extinction in 2021. The National Zoo estimates that there are approximately 1,864 giant pandas living in the wild in China.
This isn’t the first time no pandas have left a zoo in China. In 1999, the National Zoo did not hold a panda exhibit for about a year. And if President Joe Biden meets Chinese President Xi Jinping face-to-face (which could happen during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in San Francisco in November), who knows whether a widespread recall of loaned pandas will happen.
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