Ping Ping and Fu Shuang left Chengdu for Zoo Atlanta at 2:55 a.m. Sunday local time, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. The giant pandas are traveling on loan from the Chinese government and are scheduled to arrive in Atlanta early Sunday.
Li Mingxi, deputy director of the Chengdu base, said the pandas had spent a month in quarantine with live-in carers and were trained to get used to their crates and loud noises. China arranged for veterinarians and breeders to stay at Zoo Atlanta during the pandas’ quarantine there; the indoor exhibit area was expanded with habitats, platforms and pools.
The transfer continues China’s long-running practice of loaning pandas as diplomatic envoys. It came a day after Xi Jinping’s Washington visit ended; during the visit, Xi and President Donald Trump extended a trade truce and agreed to establish an AI hotline. Zoo Atlanta previously hosted Lun Lun and Yang Yang, who had seven offspring there between 2006 and 2016 before returning to Chengdu. A Zoo Atlanta representative declined to share information about the pair’s planned arrival date.
