Yuan Meng, the first baby panda born in France, will finally reach China on Tuesday July 25, instead of the 4th as initially planned, the ZooParc de Beauval (Loir-et-Cher) announced on Tuesday.
The trip of the panda star, born in Saint-Aignan (Loir-et-Cher) in August 2017, was postponed by three weeks due to the “delay in certain administrative documents”, confided the CEO of the zoo Rodolphe Delord.
Yuan Meng, who was initially scheduled to reach Frankfurt airport (Germany) by truck before flying to the Giant Panda Research and Reproduction Center in Chengdu (China), will this time take off from Roissy airport, said Delord.
The two-tone plantigrade will be transported, “accompanied by a trainer and veterinarian from Beauval”, in an Air China charter plane which will make the Paris-Chengdu journey in “about twelve hours”.
Yuan Meng was originally supposed to join China at the age of three or four but his stay had been extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The young male will thus free up space for his younger sisters, the twins Huanlili and Yuandudu, born on August 2, 2021.