San Francisco will become the next US city to receive a pair of pandas from China as part of the “Panda Diplomacy” program between Washington and Beijing.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Friday that the San Francisco Zoo has been selected to house the giant panda.
“San Francisco is really excited to welcome giant pandas to the San Francisco Zoo.” Breed said in a statement.
Breed worked closely with the city’s Chinese and Asian Pacific Islander communities for nearly a year leading up to last November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference in San Francisco, where President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said he had done so.
She also said having pandas in the city’s zoo “strengthens the already deep cultural ties” with these communities.
Wi Winlu, secretary general of the China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA), said the association will work with city authorities to prepare technical standards for the arrival of pandas in 2025 and their protection, the Associated Press reported. Ta.
The mayor of San Francisco noted that the city’s temporary visit to pandas during the 1984 Summer Olympic expedition drew more than 260,000 visitors to the zoo, “about the average attendance at that time. “4 times as many,” he said.
“Having semi-permanent giant pandas in captivity will be extremely important to San Francisco’s local Chinese and API communities, as well as to the city’s economic tourism efforts, which will greatly boost San Francisco’s tourist attractions and appeal.” the city stated.
In February, San Diego announced it would take in two pandas, reviving a program between the United States and China.
Earlier this year, the CWCA announced that it had also signed a cooperation agreement with a zoo in Madrid and was in talks regarding pandas with zoos in Washington, D.C. and Vienna.
The new agreement with the California Zoo comes after three giant pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., were repatriated to China in November after their more than 20-year stay in the United States expired. .
The expiry of the agreement was seen as a potential point of contention between the two countries.
The United States and China have been engaged in panda diplomacy since former President Richard Nixon signed an agreement in 1972.
China is the panda’s only natural habitat and has most of the world’s pandas, the Associated Press noted.
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