Khaberni - The Tokyo metropolitan government reported today, Monday, that it will return the last two giant pandas in the country, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, to China in late January.
The twin male and female were born in the Taito Pavilion zoo in the Japanese capital in 2021 and have remained there since, according to the Japanese news agency Jiji Press. An agreement between the Tokyo government and the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association stipulates that the twins will be handed over to China, which owns all giant pandas in the world, by February 2026.
The metropolitan government has requested a new pair of pandas from China but it is unclear whether the request will be accepted. With the departure of Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, more than fifty years of panda conservation efforts in Japan, which began in 1972 with the arrival of Kang Kang and Lan Lan, a male and female, from China at the Ueno Zoo on the occasion of the diplomatic normalization between the two countries that same year, will come to an end.
