The Diplomat
Members of the giant panda family who have acted as China’s other ‘ambassadors’ in Spain for the past few years will return to the Asian country on Thursday, after a farewell ceremony was held for them at Madrid Zoo Aquarium last Thursday.
At the ceremony, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said that the pandas were being bid farewell “with the melancholy with which one bids farewell to a loved one when they undertake a journey, when they leave for another place, with the melancholy of having had the joy of having been able to enjoy them since 2007, but also with the joy of having established such a close relationship with the pandas”.
For his part, the Chinese ambassador to Spain, Yao Jing, expressed his gratitude “to the Spaniards, to the people of Madrid, to all the visitors to this park because over the last four decades the pandas have been able to offer their vitality and joy”. “With your particular attention and love for them, they are happy, they are healthy and they are ready to return home,” he said.
The stars of the ceremony were the members of the panda family: the mother, Hua Zui Ba, and the father, Bing Xing, who arrived in 2007 at the Madrid zoo from the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, and their children Chulina (born in 2016) and the twins You You and Jiu Jiu (2021). During their time at the Zoo, the couple had six cubs, three of which – twins Po and De De (2010) and Xing Bao (2013) – have already been taken to China.
The panda bears that will now travel to Chengdu will be replaced in the coming months by a young pair that China will send, following the renewal of the agreement for the protection of the species between the Spanish park and the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
The presence of Chinese panda bears at the Madrid Zoo has been one of the most popular points of connection between Spain and China since the first pair arrived in Spain in 1978, as a gift from the Chinese authorities following a trip to China by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia. Four years later, the famous and now deceased Chu Lin was born, the first giant panda born in captivity in Europe and an emblem for a whole generation of children and adults in Spain.
China considers panda bears a national treasure and proof of its friendship with friendly countries, with which it has breeding and conservation agreements that have allowed them to cease to be considered an endangered species.
