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Pandas from China en route to Washington, D.C. after National Zoo returned beloved animals last year
Two giant pandas were on the way from China to Washington on Monday less than a year after the National Zoo said goodbye to a pandas on loan from China.
The pandas — Bao Li and Qing Bao — departed Chengdu and are scheduled to arrive in Anchorage just before 10 p.m. local time, according to plane tracker FlightAware. From there, the bears will head to Dulles, with a landing scheduled around 9:55 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
“Something *giant* is coming to Washington, D.C. via the @FedEx Panda Express,” the National Zoo said in a Monday post on social media. “The Zoo will be closed to the public tomorrow, Oct. 15. For the safety of the pandas and staff, we will not disclose any additional timing.”
Roshan Patel/National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
The National Zoo first received pandas from China in 1972 after President Richard Nixon’s trip to China to open diplomatic and trade relations between the U.S. and China. China “has used pandas to pursue diplomatic objectives, a practice termed panda diplomacy,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
China in 2000 sent Mei Xiang and Tian Tian to the National Zoo as part of an agreement with the China Wildlife and Conservation Association. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were supposed to stay in the U.S. for 10 years, but the agreement was extended several times. The pair of pandas in 2020 had a cub, Xiao Qi Ji.
Xiao Qi Ji and his parents were returned to China in November of last year. After they left, Zoo Atlanta was the only zoo in the U.S. with giant pandas. Their pandas are set to return to China at some point this year.
Then giant pandas returned to the San Diego Zoo this summer for the first time since 2019. And in May, first lady Dr. Jill Biden joined Smithsonian officials to announce pandas were coming back to the nation’s capital.
Bao Li, a 2-year-old male, was born in Sichuan to father An An and mother Bao Bao. He already has ties to the U.S.: Bao Li’s mother was born at the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in 2013 and his grandparents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, lived at the National Zoo from 2000 to 2023.
Qing Bao, the female panda headed to the U.S., is also 2 years old.
The pandas will be quarantined for at least 30 days after they arrive at the National Zoo, according to the facility. Quarantine will allow the zoo to reduce the risk of introducing parasites or disease to other animals.
They’ll then have a few more weeks to settle into their new home before their public debut. The Smithsonian Zoo has not yet shared a public debut, only saying that it will be announced “as soon as the animal care team feels the bears are ready to meet visitors.”
The giant panda is currently listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.
The National Zoo is also home to red pandas.
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Search ends for remains of British soldier abducted, killed and secretly buried by IRA in 1977
A search in Ireland for the remains of a British soldier killed and secretly buried by Irish republican paramilitaries almost 50 years ago has ended without success, authorities said Wednesday.
Robert Nairac, a British Army captain, was abducted by the IRA from a pub in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in May 1977 while working undercover and attempting to gather intelligence.
The 28-year-old soldier was taken to a nearby forest across the border with the Republic of Ireland where he was tortured and shot dead. The location of his remains has been a mystery ever since, the BBC reported.
Nairac is one of the highest profile of the so-called “Disappeared”: 17 victims of paramilitary violence during the sectarian conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland known as “the Troubles”, whose bodies were buried in secret.
Four, including Nairac’s, are still missing.
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Investigators with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) — an agency tasked with locating the disappeared — began the search in August on farmland adjacent to the border.
The search, the first to have taken place and involving mechanical diggers, began after information was relayed to the ICLVR, the BBC reported. It is believed to have come from a former IRA member.
But it announced on Wednesday that it had been unsuccessful.
“It is bitterly disappointing that the search for Robert Nairac’s remains has ended without success and our thoughts are with the Nairac family, in particular his sisters Rosemonde and Gabrielle,” said a joint statement by Tim Dalton and Rosalie Flanagan of the ICLVR.
“The investigation and search team did everything they could to bring about a successful outcome but clearly more information is needed.”
ICLVR’s lead investigator Jon Hill appealed for further information to aid the search at the site in Faughart, around 55 miles north of Dublin.
“We were searching a relatively small area, less that one acre (0.4 hectares), and we did so because the information we had was credible,” he added.
“It is our experience from other searches that while we have been in the right area the precise location has not been found first time round,” he said.
UK Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said he was “saddened” by the unsuccessful search.
“My thoughts are with (Nairac’s) sisters, who continue to live with the pain of not having the remains of their beloved brother returned to them,” Benn said in a statement.
The ICLVR previously dismissed rumors that Nairac’s body was disposed of using a meat grinder, the BBC reported. It also said there was no evidence linking him to the Dublin Monaghan bombings or the Miami Showband massacre – attacks carried out by loyalists in the 1970s.
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