EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) —
Visitors to the Edinburgh Zoo had their final chance to see and bid farewell Thursday to a pair of popular giant pandas who are returning home to China after more than a decade in Scotland.
Yang Guang and Tian Tian are leaving in early December after a 12-year stay. They have been a popular attraction since people lined the road outside the zoo to greet them when they arrived in 2011.
They are the latest pandas to leave the West after exchange agreements have expired and not been renewed by China.
The only U.S. zoo with pandas is in Atlanta and its agreement expires next year. Washington’s National Zoo sent its three pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji — to China earlier in November. The black and white bears at the San Diego Zoo were sent home in 2019 and the remaining panda at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo returned earlier this year.
Veteran China-watchers have speculated that the People’s Republic is gradually pulling its bears from American and European zoos due to tensions with Western governments over a host of issues.
However, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during…
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