The San Diego Zoo, once home to a number of China’s giant pandas, may be on the way to a new stint as host to the bamboo-munching crowd favorites with a new cooperation agreement with Chinese panda authorities.
While the announcement doesn’t say for certain that China will again lend the zoo some pandas, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has filed a permit application with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that is a necessary step.
The San Diego Zoo has a 30-year history of cooperation with the China Wildlife Conservation Association on research that has helped develop food and procedures for captive pandas that has increased the survival rate for zoo-born babies from 5% to over 90% and has helped move the pandas down one step from the list of most-threatened species.
China maintains ownership of all giant pandas, who are native to nowhere else, but allows loans to cooperating zoos in a number of countries. Under those agreements, zoo-born cubs are sent to China as they mature.
Credit: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
