New pandas arrive in DC; Atlanta pandas will leave by the end of the year

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

In February, the San Diego Zoo also announced that a pair of pandas would return to the zoo by the end of the year. The multinational breeding effort helped save the giant panda from the brink of extinction.

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute first welcomed two giant pandas in 1972, when Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were sent to the United States to celebrate President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. The bears instantly became one of the biggest attractions at the zoo.

Similar cooperation programs have been launched in other zoos. Zoo Atlanta welcomed Lun Lun and Yang Yang in 1999, under a contract with the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base that required all of the couple’s descendants to be sent to China when they were reaching maturity.

The pair were successful as parents, producing seven cubs, five of which were sent to China and one of which fathered seven cubs.

They also became stars in Atlanta, attracting delighted visitors to the Grant Park facility and online “panda-cam” viewers.

Atlanta’s pandas are expected to return to China “sometime in the fourth quarter” of the year, according to zoo spokeswoman Rachel Davis.

The pandas shipped to San Diego and Washington represent the first time in more than two decades that China has sent new pandas to the United States.

Zoo Atlanta officials were optimistic about reaching a new deal with China. In February, Raymond B. King, president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta, said, “There is a high level of mutual respect on both sides. They send delegations to see how we are doing, and they never leave with the slightest criticism.”