It will still be many months before a new panda is introduced to the San Diego Zoo. This will be the first bear of its kind to be shipped from China to the United States in decades.
For now, Atlanta is the only remaining zoo in the United States. But there are many places around the world where you can observe these cute black-and-white fur bundles munching on bamboo, climbing trees, and lounging on their backs.
Bears are native to China and are considered national treasures.
Pandas return to San Diego Zoo as China revives ‘panda diplomacy’
Here are some places where you can see pandas, including possibly wild pandas in China.
atlanta
Zoo Atlanta is home to four pandas, including the first twins born in the United States in more than a quarter century. Giant pandas typically only care for one cub when twins are born in the wild, and usually only one twin survives.
Ya Lun and Shi Lun and their parents, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, could return to China at the end of 2024 unless their loan agreement is extended.
Panda brothers Paul (right) and Pitt (left) play in the snow inside the Berlin Zoo in Germany on February 12, 2021. (Kira Hoffman/DPA, via AP, File)
Mexico City
The only place in the Americas where you can see pandas is Mexico City’s Chapultepec Zoo.
Xinxing is the last panda in Latin America and is not on loan from China. That’s because she is the only surviving descendant of giant pandas that China gifted to foreign countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Her second generation of pandas, born in Mexico, traces its lineage to Pepe and Yingying, who arrived at the zoo in 1975.
qatar
One of the last countries China sent pandas to was Qatar in 2022, ahead of the Middle Eastern country hosting the World Cup.
The two live in an indoor enclosure in the desert country, designed to mimic jungle conditions in China’s mountainous Sichuan province. Nearly 1,800 pounds of fresh bamboo is flown in each week for bait.
The male Jinjin was given the Arabic name Suhail. The female Si Hai was given the Arabic name “Turaya”.
Moscow
In 2019, the first panda pair, male Lu Yi and female Ding Ding, was born at the Moscow Zoo. Chinese President Xi Jinping leased a panda during his official visit as a “sign of respect and trust.”
Berlin
Berlin Zoo is home to Jiaoqing and Mengmeng, who arrived in Berlin in 2017. They gave birth to twins, the first panda cubs born in Germany. These children then returned to China.
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China
Giant pandas are restricted to six mountainous areas in southwest China’s Sichuan, Gansu, and Shanxi provinces. A total of 34 pandas were born last year at two sites in Sichuan province, including the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, a popular tourist destination in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.
It is estimated that there are more than 1,800 individuals in the wild, and they are primarily threatened by habitat loss. There are about 420 other animals kept in zoos and sanctuaries, most of them in China.
