ANKARA / ISTANBUL, Sept 28 — Two giant pandas arrived in the US state of Georgia on Sunday to commence a 10-year residency at Zoo Atlanta under an international conservation partnership between China and the US, the zoo announced.
“Zoo Atlanta is overjoyed to announce that giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang have landed in Atlanta,” the institution said Sunday, confirming that the pair touched down at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport aboard a dedicated aircraft.
Anadolu Ajansi reported Raymond B. King, the zoo’s president and CEO, hailed the arrival as a “thrilling day for Zoo Atlanta and a historic moment for the City of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and beyond.”
The bears will not immediately be visible to the general public, as staff transferred both animals directly into a biosecure section of the facility’s newly constructed giant panda complex to undergo a routine quarantine period lasting approximately one month.
The arrival establishes Zoo Atlanta as one of three zoological institutions across the US currently housing giant pandas and marks the only sanctuary in the American Southeast to host the species, following an International Cooperative Research Agreement on Giant Panda Conservation signed alongside the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang left Chengdu after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced during a three-day summit last week with US President Donald Trump in Washington that the pandas would arrive in Atlanta in the coming days, according to NBC News.
The agreement was first announced in April, but no arrival date had been specified.
Both pandas were born in 2020 and have been kept at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
Ping Ping is male, while Fu Shuang is female.
Zoo Atlanta has been without giant pandas since its previous pandas left in 2024.
The panda loan was among the concrete outcomes of Xi’s state visit to the US, which included expressions of goodwill between the two leaders but did not resolve longstanding differences between Washington and Beijing, the outlet reported.
China has long used panda loan programmes as part of its diplomacy with other countries.
Xi described the program as an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans.”
