Two giant pandas reach Atlanta under new US-China loan agreement
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang arrived in Atlanta from Chengdu for a 10-year loan, making Zoo Atlanta one of three US zoos housing giant pandas.
Two giant pandas landed in Atlanta on Sunday morning, the first residents of a renewed loan arrangement between Zoo Atlanta and the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang left Chengdu in southwestern China early on Sunday on a Boeing 777 dedicated to the transfer, officials said. Footage showed the aircraft touching down at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where a team unloaded the container carrying the animals before it was driven to the zoo.
The agreement, announced in April without dates, places Atlanta among three American zoos that house giant pandas, alongside the San Diego Zoo in California and the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Zoo Atlanta President and CEO Raymond B. King called the arrival a historic moment for the city, the state of Georgia and beyond, saying the zoo was elated to welcome the pair and looked forward to sharing the occasion with members, guests and the wider community in the coming weeks.
Visitors will not see the bears immediately. Both will spend about a month in quarantine in a biosecure section of the zoo's new giant panda complex, and officials have not fixed an opening date.
The pandas, born in 2020 and previously kept at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, are on a 10-year loan. Ping Ping, the male, is distinguished by dark black circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang, the female, has a slightly protruding forehead.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the loan on Thursday during a three-day summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. It was one of the few concrete results of the state visit, which produced expressions of goodwill but no resolution of long-standing differences between the two countries. Xi described the loan programme as an example of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
Atlanta said goodbye to its last pandas in 2024, leaving the zoo without the animals until now. China has long used panda loans as a diplomatic tool, offering the bears as gestures of goodwill and allowing agreements to lapse when relations sour.