The beloved giant pandas at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., are leaving for China on Wednesday morning, almost one month earlier than their stay’s expiration date.
Giant pandas Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and their three-year-old cub Xiao Qi Ji will leave the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and travel aboard the FedEx Panda Express to the China Wildlife Conservation Society.
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Forklifts will move each of the panda crates down Asia Trail and across Olmsted Walk in the zoo, and the pandas will not be visible to the public in their crates, the Smithsonian said in a press release obtained by the Washington Examiner ahead of the pandas’ departure.
The pandas will be loaded onto the FedEx Panda Express, a custom Boeing 777K aircraft at Dulles International Airport. The furry travelers will be accompanied by animal care experts on their 19-hour flight from D.C. to Chengdu, China, which is set to depart at approximately 1 p.m. Eastern time. The flight will include a brief refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, the Smithsonian said.
These pandas will not be free to move about the cabin, but they will each have individual shipping carriers filled with bamboo and their favorite snacks, including pears, butternut squash, leaf-eater biscuits, and sugar cane.
When the bears take flight, it will be the first time in over two decades that the National Zoo will be without its famous pandas. Their stay in the U.S. was part of a partnership between the zoo’s Giant Panda Cooperative Research and Breeding Agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Society. The pandas were expected to stay in the U.S. for 10 years as part of a $10 million deal with China, but the agreement was extended multiple times.
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Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and Xiao Qi Ji’s stay in the U.S. was set to expire on Dec. 7, but the zoo announced that they would leave sometime before Nov. 15 in October. Under the original agreement, Mei Xian and Tian Tian’s cubs must be returned to China when they turn 4 years old. Though Xiao Qi Ji is only three years old, officials said in 2020 that it’s in the cub’s best interest to move with his parents.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo has housed pandas since 1972, working with China to study the animals’ biology, behavior, and diseases. The 50th anniversary of the first arrival of giant pandas at the zoo was in 2022.
