In 2024, for the first time in more than 50 years, there will be no pandas in the United States, after zoos in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., return theirs to China — which has been loaning its pandas to countries for decades.
The United States has been engaged in so-called panda diplomacy since 1972, when China gifted two pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., as a gesture of goodwill during President Richard Nixon’s administration.
Since then, zoos across the country have hosted giant pandas for years at a time. But that practice is coming to an end.
Did you know? Giant pandas are China’s national animal. Their life expectancy in the wild is about 15 years, but in captivity they have lived to be as old as 38.
Tian Tian enjoys the morning rain as dozens of visitors showed up on the first day of
