A Finnish zoo has agreed with Chinese authorities to return two giant pandas it had been loaning to China more than eight years ahead of schedule, after falling visitor numbers made caring for them too expensive.
The privately run Ähateli Zoo in central Finland, about 205 miles north of Helsinki, announced on its Facebook page on Wednesday that female panda Lumi, whose name means “snow” in Finnish, and male panda Pilly, whose name means “snowfall,” will be “prematurely” returned to China later this year.
The pair of pandas were a gift from China to mark the Nordic nation's 100th anniversary of independence in 2017 and were due to be on loan until 2033.
But since then, the zoo has faced many challenges, including declining visitor numbers due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as rising inflation and interest rates, the zoo said in a statement.
The panda deal between Helsinki and Beijing was a 15-year lease that was signed in April 2017 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Finland to meet then-Finland's president, Sauli Niinistö.
The pandas arrived in Finland in January 2018.
Arteri Zoo, which specialises in iconic Nordic animals such as bears, lynx and wolverines, has built a special panda annex at a cost of around 8 million euros ($9 million) in a bid to attract more tourists to the remote nature reserve.
Rumi and Pirie's upkeep costs the zoo about 1.5 million euros a year, including a conservation fee to China. The bamboo they eat is flown in from the Netherlands.
The Chinese embassy in Helsinki told Finnish media that the Chinese government has tried to help the Ähtari zoo overcome its financial difficulties by encouraging Chinese companies operating in Finland to make donations to the zoo and helping it restructure its debts.
But a combination of falling visitor numbers and a rapidly changing economic environment proved too much for the small Finnish zoo.
The pair of pandas will go into quarantine for a month from late October, after which they will be sent back to China.
Finland, with a population of 5.6 million, was one of the first Western countries to establish political ties with China, in 1950.
China has gifted giant pandas to various countries as a sign of goodwill and strengthening political ties, and Finland is the first Nordic country to receive a panda.
