Panda drought ends in California as new arrivals at San Diego Zoo welcome visitors | WUWM 89.7 FM

The San Diego Zoo opened a long-awaited giant panda exhibit to the public on Thursday, breathing new life into U.S.-China diplomacy and delighting panda fans in California.

The special public opening of Panda Ridge was scheduled for noon local time on Thursday, a date proclaimed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as California Panda Day as he welcomed the “friendship envoys” from China.

The eldest panda, Yun Chuan (pronounced “yoon chu-an,” according to the zoo), is a male who is almost 5 years old.

“Her mother, Zhen Zhen, was born in 2007 and was the fourth cub born at the San Diego Zoo. She is identifiable by her long, slightly pointed nose,” the zoo said.

Xin Bao (pronounced “sing bao”), a female, is almost 4 years old. Her distinctive features include a “large, round face and big, furry ears,” the zoo said.

They are the first pandas to arrive in the United States in 21 years.

Visitors to the zoo on Thursday should expect “huge crowds and heavy traffic,” according to NPR member station KPBS.

The zoo said that in addition to a standby line that opened hours before the exhibit, it would issue free, time-limited tickets to see the pandas. The zoo also offers an early morning, one-hour walking tour focused on the animals, starting at $92.

The San Diego Zoo has a long history of housing pandas, but recently went five years without the beloved animal after its last two pandas, Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu, were removed from their home in Panda Canyon in spring 2019.

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., also said goodbye to its pandas last November, in what many local fans felt was an abrupt departure. For much of this year, Zoo Atlanta was the only U.S. zoo with giant pandas.

But earlier this year, both the National Zoo and the San Francisco Zoo announced they will also see the return of giant pandas, likely in late 2024 and 2025, respectively, as Chinese officials have made new agreements with their American counterparts.

China first sent pandas to the United States in 1972, in a program that was seen as a relationship-building exercise for the two countries and a chance for conservation experts to collaborate to help black and white bear populations recover.

The giant pandas have since been brought to the United States under a loan program, with the animals and their offspring remaining the property of China. Such loans have been granted frequently, but the deals have highlighted the strain that U.S.-China relations have experienced in recent years.

In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the way it designates giant pandas on its list of threatened species, classifying them as “vulnerable” to extinction rather than endangered.

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