DC residents overjoyed as pandas arrive

The return of giant pandas to Washington, DC, has stirred much anticipation among local residents while also highlighting the extensive renovations of the bears' habitat by the Smithsonian's National Zoo staff.

The 3-year-old pandas — Bao Li and Qing Bao — arrived in the US capital from China on Tuesday.

The zoo had no pandas for 11 months after Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji returned to China in November.

"We're very excited. It gives us so much hope for the future. We love supporting endangered animals. Who doesn't love a panda? Everyone loves pandas!" Gene Hunt, 68, of Washington, DC, told China Daily.

Hunt was taking pictures with panda decorations in the zoo, and said he had been following the news regularly to know when the bears would arrive.

"They are beautiful. The panda is the main symbol of peace between the two nations. We need more of that. We need more exchanges and more cultural awareness of others. It's a great appreciation of nature and the world we live in," he said.

"Thank you, China, for many of those beautiful adolescents," said Albert Garcia, 64, of Washington, who said he hopes the pandas continue to serve as ambassadors between China and the US. "We love it. And we promise to take good care (of the pandas)."

After a 19-hour, 13,277-kilometer transpacific journey on FedEx's "Panda Express" from Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, the pair landed at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia around 11:30 am on Tuesday. They were taken in two trucks to the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, or NZCBI.

A lively crowd of panda fans in black-and-white accessories, along with foreign reporters and photographers carrying long-lens cameras, gathered at the zoo's gate.

Bao Li and Qing Bao exited the crates that were carrying them and began to explore their new indoor enclosures, where the keepers had placed an adequate quantity of bamboo. They will be quarantined for a minimum of 30 days and will debut at the zoo on Jan 24.

They are the second pair of pandas to arrive in the United States this year.

Yun Chuan and Xin Bao debuted at the San Diego Zoo in August, marking a new round of conservation and research collaboration between China and the US. A third pair of pandas is expected in San Francisco.

Bao Li, which means "treasure "and "energy" in Chinese, is a curious and extroverted male panda who was born in Sichuan but has a deep familial connection with Washington.

His mother, Bao Bao, was born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo on Aug 23, 2013, and his grandparents, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, are adored in the Washington area, where they served as ambassadors for their species for 23 years.

"He (Bao Li) is just a charmer. He is an acrobat. He already went into his enclosure and tried to look for places to climb," Brandie Smith, the John and Adrienne Mars director of NZCBI, told China Daily, "while the other one is more thoughtful, a little more deliberate, maybe more willful".

Qing Bao means "green" and "treasure" in Chinese.

Successful cooperation

"It's going to be fun to kind of get to know them," Smith said. "We also have incredible scientists who work here with us, and this really is key to decades of successful cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China."

China and the US have been working on panda conservation for decades since former first lady Patricia Nixon welcomed the first giant pandas to Washington in 1972. Both countries helped move the giant panda from "endangered" to "vulnerable" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

James Steeil, supervisory veterinary medical officer of NZCBI, who traveled with the pandas on their trip from China, said: "They are eating normally, they are active. They explored. They'll slowly come out over the next couple of days."

Steeil said the US and China have been working closely on the pandas' primary food source, bamboo, and researching its availability and connections to climate change.

"We also got the recipe for wowotou," Steeil said, referring to the Chinese term for "steamed cornbread", which originated in China, and is the pandas' favorite food. "It's a combination of three types of flours, egg, oil, a little water, and mineral supplements. We put them together and steam it."

Steeil said he learned some Chinese words, including a few in the Sichuan dialect, which he said the pandas are used to hearing.

Laurie Thompson, the zoo's assistant curator of the giant pandas, who has visited China eight times, including a trip in early October to meet the pandas, said, "We will start training — basic things like 'open your mouth' or 'show us your paw.'"

The David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat, along with the Bird House and Asia Trail, will reopen when Bao Li and Qing Bao make their public appearance. The habitat has been under renovation since last November.

The zoo has been upgraded with new rock structures with shallow pools for pandas to wade, bathe and play in. There are stands that hold the bamboo upright and require the pandas to reach up and pull the stalks down, simulating the foraging techniques needed in the wild.

The climbing structures — made of natural wood beams and woven hammocks — offer additional vertical space but also challenge wild pandas' climbing skills.

"They're splashing around and having a great time, so it sounds like they're using the space just as we had hoped," said Matt Sellers, the zoo's landscape architect.