Will giant pandas
(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) succeed where humans have failed? That is the question to be asked as China renvews its breeding and research agreement with the National Zoo by sending two new pandas to Washington, DC. The National Zoo has been without pandas since last November when three pandas, Tian Tian, Mei Xiang and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji were flown back to their homeland. Bao Li and Qing Bao were born within a month of each other at a conservation center in Sichuan province, China began sending pandas to other countries as a form of diplomacy in 1972. The pandas face a thirty day quarantine before being exhibited to the public. In 2016 the giant panda was reclassified by the IUCN from endangered to vulnerable thanks to intensive conservation efforts in China that have increased the wild population.
