BERLIN.- The Berlin Zoo has sent China the first pandas born in Germanya trip for the four-year-old pups that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pit and Paule, also known by their Chinese names Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, left Berlin on Saturday on an Air China cargo plane and had arrived at their new home, the Chengdu Panda Base, the zoo.
“Pit and Paule handled the flight well,” said Andreas Pauly, head of animal health at the zoo, who accompanied the brothers to China. “When the bamboo is good, the pandas tend to be very relaxed. It was the same during the flight.” .
The two will now spend 30 days in quarantine at the panda center.
The young animals were a star attraction in Berlin since they were born in 2019, but their return to China was contractually agreed from the beginning.
Although for decades, China gave copies of its unofficial mascot to friendly countries as part of the so-called “panda diplomacy,” the country now gives the animals to zoos as part of commercial contracts.
Pit and Paule’s parents, Jiao Qing and Meng Meng, arrived in Berlin in 2017. They are expected to remain in the German capital for another nine years.
When the young pandas turned four in August, the zoo announced they would soon travel to China, something they said usually happens when the animals are two or three years old but was delayed because of the pandemic.
Giant pandas have problems reproducing and births are especially celebrated. There are about 1,800 wild pandas in China and a few hundred in captivity around the world.
Source: AFP
