American letter | “The world needs more pandas”

(Washington) Four days after his 47^e president, Washington inducted its ninth and tenth pandas.

Bao Li and Qing Bao arrived in the capital under tight security in a FedEx convoy on October 15. But they were in quarantine until Friday, when the National Zoological Park finally showed them to the public for the first time.

“There’s something so cute and adorable about pandas… They’re irresistible,” says Summer Shepherd, a mother who arrived at the opening wearing her panda pajamas. “My children are furious, they wanted to come, but they are at school. »

“My husband has a pink panda costume, and we go out together like that sometimes, even though people think we’re crazy. »

These masked bears are the plump and fluffy symbol of soft power Chinese: exerting influence through seduction rather than submission. In subtle “panda diplomacy”, the precious beasts are sent and brought back from countries following the ups and downs of relations with China. A bit like remembering your diplomats.

“There are two Chinese ambassadors in Washington, me and the baby panda at the National Zoo,” a former Chinese envoy to the capital used to say.

The first official shipments to the United States date back to 1941, when pandas were donated to the Bronx Zoo. But Washington’s pandas have a very special meaning. It was Mao Zedong who gave Ling-Ling and Hsing Hsing a gift in 1972 to mark the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States under Richard Nixon. It was the first lady, Pat Nixon, who welcomed the precious animals.

The pandas were an immediate sensation: 20,000 people came to see them on the first day, and more than a million people visited them that year. Note that as the zoo is part of the Smithsonian network, entry is free, like that of all the major museums in the capital.

One of the two pandas given by Mao died in 1992, the other in 1999. Since then, China no longer gives pandas, but lends them – let’s say it rents them, to the tune of a million dollars. per year. San Diego, Atlanta and Memphis got some for a while, but the only two on American soil are in Washington. In Canada, the Toronto Zoo housed two for a while, then the Calgary Zoo, but all were repatriated.

The last ones left Washington in 2023, and the city was impatiently awaiting the next ones.

Because if there is panda diplomacy, there is also panda tourism.

Molly Wagner, 9, has seen pandas in Mexico, Hong Kong, Taipei and San Diego.

“They’re cute and funny,” she said, hugging two threadbare stuffed pandas turned gray from years of cuddling.

Among the media present for this zoological investiture ceremony, there were many Chinese media.

“There is great pride, but several people in China are not happy that we are sending pandas, given the state of relations with the United States at the moment,” a colleague told me who did not want to be identified.

In principle, part of the money collected from various zoos around the world is used to protect the animal, which is only found in the high mountains of southwest China, where it gorges itself on bamboo.

“Giant pandas are an example of success in species conservation,” says Michael Brown-Palsgrove, panda curator. Their numbers have increased, so much so that they have gone from being an endangered species to being a vulnerable species. Many new parks have been created in China, as well as corridors to connect fragmented habitats. »

Michael Brown-Palsgrove was trained in China and remains in close contact with Chinese biologists, who rigorously monitor the condition of the animals. Every month a report is sent.

“We also have a system of 40 cameras managed by a volunteer. »

The zoo’s “panda cam” is very popular, and not just with experts or people who walk around in panda pajamas.

Watch the National Zoological Park’s “panda cam”

For biologists, “panda pedagogy” and international cooperation for the preservation of the species advance ecological awareness.

But real progress is very difficult to measure. In addition to the 650 pandas in captivity in zoos in China (mostly) and elsewhere in the world, Chinese authorities estimate the wild population of giant pandas at 1,864. Still according to official data, there were 1,100 in 1980.

The New York Times explained last fall that the counting technique consists of analyzing the remains of bamboo in the droppings of pandas in the forest. As each of these bears has unique teeth, we can determine whether there are one or more pandas in a given location.

Several experts are therefore doubtful about the value of these indirect censuses and we wonder how we can arrive at such a precise number…

Satellite maps of habitats have in the past shown fragmentation due to road construction, in particular. Some believe that their population is being underestimated in order to give free rein to the forestry industry. Others say we overestimate it, for political reasons.

Independent conservation organizations still estimate that the state of the giant panda has improved significantly over the last 40 years.

(I specify “giant”, because the zoo is also home to “small pandas”, or red pandas, a kind of extremely friendly cross between a weasel and a raccoon, and largely underestimated in my opinion.)

Zoos are contributing to repopulation, as several pandas born in captivity have been released into the wild. For now, Bao Li and Qing Bao, who are only 3 years old, live separately. When they reach sexual maturity, in two years, “we will introduce them and see their interest,” says Michael Brown-Palsgrove cautiously. There, they are like at daycare…”.