US-born panda Bei Bei arrives in new China home
The US-born giant panda Bei Bei has arrived in southwestern China after a 16-hour flight, with plenty of bamboo for him to munch on as he settled into his new home.
Photo: AFP
Beijing (AFP): The US-born giant panda Bei Bei has arrived in southwestern China after a 16-hour flight, with plenty of bamboo for him to munch on as he settled into his new home.
The four-year-old cub, whose name means "precious, treasure" in Mandarin, appeared to be contentedly eating and ambling around his new cage at a research centre in Sichuan province, according to images broadcast Thursday by state broadcaster CGTN.
Bei Bei travelled aboard a specially outfitted Boeing 777F cargo plane called the "Panda Express" -- paid for by FedEx -- accompanied by his keeper from the National Zoo in Washington and more than 70 pounds of bamboo and other treats.
China lends pandas to zoos around the world -- a programme dubbed "panda diplomacy".
Once young pandas reach the age of four, they are repatriated to breed with other pandas at sanctuaries in China. The animals are considered "vulnerable" to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Bei Bei was welcomed "home" on Thursday with a ceremony at the Bifengxia Panda Base in Sichuan, local media reported.
Fans had lined up at the National Zoo -- the only home Bei Bei had ever known before his return to China -- to bid the cub farewell ahead of his departure.
His siblings, brother Tai Shan and sister Bao Bao, have already been returned to China, while his father Tian Tian and mother Mei Xiang -- both born in China -- will remain at the National Zoo until at least December 2020.
Bei Bei was born in August 2015, and his name was announced with great fanfare at an event with then-first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart Peng Liyuan.
-
Indigenous people march in Brazil to demand land demarcation
2024-04-24 -
Talks on global plastic treaty begin in Canada
2024-04-24 -
Colombian court recognizes environmental refugees
2024-04-24 -
Asia hit hardest by climate and weather disasters last year, says UN
2024-04-23 -
Denmark launches its biggest offshore wind farm tender
2024-04-22 -
Nobel laureate urges Iranians to protest 'war against women'
2024-04-22 -
'Human-induced' climate change behind deadly Sahel heatwave: study
2024-04-21 -
Moldovan youth is more than ready to join the EU
2024-04-18 -
UN says solutions exist to rapidly ease debt burden of poor nations
2024-04-18 -
Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
2024-04-18