Panda pair makes debut with rousing welcome

San Diego Zoo's new residents represent common humanity, aspirations for friendship and exchanges, officials say

The city of San Diego is "Pan-Diego" again with a new pair of giant pandas having made their public debut recently.

Yun Chuan, a 5-year-old male, and Xin Bao, a 4-year-old female, were the first pandas to be sent to the United States in more than two decades, attracting thousands of visitors and much media attention.

California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed Aug 8 as California Panda Day. Newsom was at the San Diego Zoo on Thursday to attend the opening of the newly expanded Panda Ridge — Yun Chuan and Xin Bao's new home.

People from across the U.S. are flocking to the zoo to visit the zoo's newest residents, with some making reservations weeks in advance and the wait list equally as long.

At noon on Thursday, visitors in panda T-shirts waited in the shade of the dense bamboo forest at Panda Ridge in anticipation of their first encounter with Yun Chuan and Xin Bao.

"We are excited to see the pandas. We are looking forward to this all day," Taylor Ory, 29, a visitor from San Diego, told China Daily. "We are excited to have them back!"

Ory said she waited around 30 minutes to see Yun Chuan, who was lying on a wooden climbing frame sunbathing.

"He was sleeping. He's very cute. We got to see a side profile of his face," Ory recalled. "Even though they are bears, they look so cute. They seem smaller than the other bears, and they just look like you want to snuggle up with them."

Victor Ponce, 51, brought his 9-year-old son David to the zoo to see his favorite animals.

"We were actually one of the first ones to get in," Ponce said. "We decided to take him for this. We love the pandas. We had them here in San Diego before, and knowing that they're back, it's a privilege to come and see them again. They are really fun animals."

Ponce also said there is a generational connection in his family because he and his wife had seen Yun Chuan's other family members. Yun Chuan is the son of San Diego-born panda Zhen Zhen.

" (China) trusts us with their animals, and they can have a common ground," he said, adding that they are looking forward to going to China to see more pandas. "My son wanted to go to China."

Amanda Temple, 29, from Salt Lake City, Utah, said she and her daughter got a bird's-eye view of the pandas from the bridge at the top of Panda Ridge.

"They look so cute and cuddly, and they are perfectly black and white," she said.

Temple's 4-year-old daughter River wore two round pigtails atop her head, resembling panda ears. River wore a pink dress with a panda print and held a panda doll dressed in a pink dress to complete her panda look.

Temple's other daughter, 6-year-old Aspyn, waved a toy baby panda beside her mother and sister. Aspyn is a big fan of the Kung Fu Panda movies.

The two pandas had been in quarantine in Panda Ridge since their arrival in late June.

The renovated Panda Ridge is now an innovative space four times larger than San Diego Zoo's previous panda habitat, with an enclosure inspired by "famous geological formations in China, emulating mountains, canyons and cliffs" and the pandas' native habitats in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, a zoo news release said.

The new home also has "new shade trees for climbing, a diverse array of plants, and rolling hillsides that allow Yun Chuan and Xin Bao to navigate and explore vertically".

Marco Wendt, a wildlife ambassador for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said San Diego Zoo has grown 2.4 hectares of bamboo forest at the zoo and safari park, not only for food but also for bamboo conservation.

"We want to offer species-specific behavior," Wendt said.

Ling Shanshan, a veterinary expert from China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, told China Daily that San Diego Zoo has offered about 20 different types of bamboo for the pandas, with some varieties among their favorites at the moment.