They are the star couple at Beauval Zoo. After 13 years of living in these places, female panda Huan Huan and male panda Yuan Zi said goodbye on Sunday to more than 200 visitors who came for the event. The 17-year-old Ursid will return to the Chengdu Conservation Center in China on Tuesday.
Despite his passing, Beauval Zoo will continue to provide pandas to its visitors. This is because the couple gave birth to three babies, the first in France. A man, born in 2017, left for China two years ago. The twins will live in Beauval until at least 2027.
The couple’s return will take place in the morning, under heavy police protection, “like heads of state”, who will take them to Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, from where they will take off at around 12:30.
“End their lives where they were born”
Their departure had been planned. “In accordance with the cooperation agreement, the panda must be returned to China,” Beauval Zoo explained on its website. This return is actually “part of an international program for the conservation, research and reproduction of giant pandas”. “It is customary for pandas, borrowed from China, to end their lives where they were born, in a breeding and research center in Chengdu,” park director Rodolphe Delord told Le Parisien.
The Chengdu Conservation Center, where they live now, is an organization dedicated to the research and breeding of giant pandas. The international program in which the two pandas participate, “allows for research and cooperation in many areas, such as giant panda breeding, animal behavior and awareness of their conservation, determine the location, thanks to this international cooperation, 25 births, or 37 cubs, have been recorded since 2023.”
The female Huan Huan and male Yuan Zi will go there to live a “peaceful retirement”, still in captivity, according to the Beauval zoo, the animals’ life expectancy is on average 35 years. However, the center remains open to the public.
Early departure for health reasons
Such actions “participate in the preservation of the species; the origin of the panda in danger own prone toaccording to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN),” the zoo said. The pair of pandas were monitored by experts from France and China and benefited from regular care and in-depth medical monitoring.
The departure, originally planned for January 2027, was moved forward, so that “the female who has mild kidney disease can travel while she is still in perfect health,” explained the zoo director.
“Usually, it’s their 4-year-old twins who have to go,” Rodolphe Delord said. However, the mother panda “had only a few health problems, mild kidney problems, nothing to worry about, a disease that is quite common among carnivores today.”
Two pandas remain in Beauval
The twins “live with us.” Therefore, with only “two of the four pandas leaving again, all the lights are green to continue the program with our Chinese colleagues”, concludes Rodolphe Delord, who hopes that the adventure will continue after 2027.
Since their arrival in France in 2012, pandas have created real excitement around them, contributing to the success of the park recording almost two million visitors by 2023. Pandas have also proven themselves to be a real diplomatic problem with China. Only about twenty zoological parks outside China have this herbivorous plant, which is a symbol of Beijing’s diplomatic friendship.
