There were more than 200 people on this rainy Sunday in Beauval to say goodbye to Huan Huan and Yuan Zi. A pair of famous pandas will leave the zoo on Tuesday, due to an early return due to the female’s kidney failure.
Dressed “like pandas” from head to toe, shoes, socks, pants, jackets, bobs with pictures of ursids, Patrice Colombel, an electronics technician and Véronique, his wife, a secretary at a secondary school, are from Bordeaux. They wouldn’t want to miss this last snack for anything.
“These are the first pandas we have known. We wanted to be there to say goodbye to them. These are representatives of WWF,” they said. Pandas have been their life companion since January 15, 2012: “We have visited them more than a thousand times since their arrival,” they said at the last panda tea party organized by the park located in Saint-Aignan, in Loir-et-Cher.
The people of Bordeaux mingle with Benoit and Laure Marralle, his fans, who have come from Marseille to celebrate their daughter Julia’s tenth birthday. “That’s my favorite animal!” », Launched the young girl. “Through pandas, we want to show our children how important it is to save endangered species,” explained the parents.
Strong relationships with caregivers
Delphine Pouvreau, a nanny, does not hide her emotions. “This is the final farewell to the public. It will be very difficult on Tuesday. All the keepers have a strong relationship with them. Here we experienced the birth of the first baby panda in France. These memories will remain etched in our hearts!”, he said.
“The female was suffering from mild kidney problems, which are currently not serious, a disease that is quite common in carnivores at this age, 17 years old,” recalled park director Rodolphe Delord. Therefore, it is better to “consult with the Chinese authorities to anticipate this”, even if all this happens with a little pain in the heart”.
The ZooParc director recalled that Beauval will continue to feature pandas: “The female pandas will stay with us. I will soon be meeting with Chinese authorities to see how we can continue panda adventures long after 2027.”
Since their arrival in France at the beginning of 2012, pandas have created real excitement around them, contributing to the park’s success (two million visitors by 2023) and becoming loyal darlings of the public.
They also gave birth to three babies, the first in France: a boy who was born in 2017 and left for China two years ago, as well as two twin girls, who will stay in Beauval until at least 2027.
Police protection like the head of state
Their repatriation to China, to the Chengdu Conservation Center, was to take place in the early hours of Tuesday, under heavy police protection, “like heads of state”, who were to take them to Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, from where they were to take off at around 12:30.
In just a few years, these pandas have 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.
