California's state animal may be the grizzly bear, but today is another bear's big moment to shine.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Aug. 8, 2024, as California Panda Day, a playful (but also politically significant) nod to Thursday’s public debut of two giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, at the San Diego Zoo.
These two pandas, in a gesture of goodwill from China, are the first to be sent to the United States in more than two decades.
“This conservation partnership is part of a long history of collaboration between California and China toward shared goals,” said Newsom, who plans to visit the zoo in the morning. “Building on our strong foundation of collaboration and deep cultural and economic ties, I traveled to China last year to advance priority issues, including climate action and economic development.
“We hope that the newly arrived panda ‘friendship envoys’ will lead to greater exchanges and cooperation between California and China,” he added, in his official proclamation of California Panda Day.
Yun Chuan and Xin Bao arrived in San Diego in June after a collaborative conservation agreement revived a “panda diplomacy” between China and the United States that had seemed to have faltered for some years.
(For more than five decades, beginning in 1972, China has loaned pandas to zoos across the United States as “friendship envoys,” but questions about the future of these loans grew in 2019 after the San Diego Zoo returned its last giant pandas to China. The Memphis Zoo and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo have also sent several pandas in recent years, as their multiyear agreements expired.)
San Diego is an especially significant place to usher in this new era of panda diplomacy. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance was the first organization in the country to establish a cooperative panda conservation program, and researchers there have since made important contributions to our scientific understanding of how to care for such a keystone species.
One of the new pandas, Yun Chuan, is in fact the son of Zhen Zhen, a female panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007.
At nearly 5 years old, Yun Chuan is recognizable by his long, pointed nose. He has an active personality, but is also known for being gentle and sensitive to others. He takes his bamboo seriously, but always lets other pandas go first, according to his wildlife care specialists.
Xin Bao, the smaller of the two, has a large, round face and big, furry ears that set her apart from other pandas. She is almost 4 years old and is naturally playful; her keepers have said she is resourceful and curious, and has proven to be an excellent climber and even gets a little rough with other pandas.
Their new home, the newly expanded Panda Ridge at the San Diego Zoo, has been designed to reflect the towering mountains, canyons and cliffs of China’s Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. This redesigned space, four times larger than the zoo’s previous panda habitat, also features shady trees to climb and rolling hillsides for Yun Chuan and Xin Bao to explore.
People who want to see the new pandas can do so in several ways: by getting a free, time-limited admission on the day of their visit, standing in line in person, or booking an exclusive 60-minute “Morning Panda Walking Tour.” Additional information can be found on the zoo’s website.
