Thousands of Japanese admirers bid farewell Sunday to four pandas due to be returned this week to China, for which the mammals are a way to strengthen diplomatic ties with other countries. Some tearful visitors flocked to Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo to catch a last glimpse of Xiang Xiang, a female panda who has drawn crowds since she was born in 2017. Others headed to a zoo in the Wakayama area (west) to say goodbye to three pandas also departing.
In Tokyo, only 2,600 people chosen by lottery were able to attend the last appearance of Xiang Xiang, the zoo’s first baby panda since 1988. But that did not prevent his unlucky admirers from going there. “I wanted to breathe the same air (…) Even if I cannot see her, my heart is filled with joy knowing that she is here,” Mari Asai told the daily. Asahi Shimbun.
More than 1,800 giant pandas in the wild
Ueno Zoo received daily calls and emails from fans asking it to keep the animal, Tokyo Shimbun daily reported, citing a park official. The mammal should have reached China in 2021 but its departure has been postponed several times due to travel restrictions linked to the pandemic.
In the Wakayama region, visitors greeted one last time Eimei, the panda who became in 2020 the oldest in the world to father at the height of his 28 years, the equivalent of more than 80 years for a human being, as well as her offspring, twin pandas. “I’m sad they’re going back to China,” a 70-year-old told public broadcaster NHK.
These mammals, recognizable by their black and white fur, are very popular worldwide. China lends them as part of its “panda diplomacy”, intended to strengthen its ties with foreign countries. According to the organization WWF, which acts in the field of environmental protection, there would remain in the wild some 1,860 giant pandas, mainly in the bamboo forests of the mountainous regions of China. About 600 of these animals live in captivity on the planet in centers dedicated to pandas, zoos and animal parks.