WASHINGTON (THE WASHINGTON POST) – Brenda Noel could feel her late sister’s presence as she stood Saturday to catch a glimpse of the National Zoo’s giant panda matriarch, Mei Xiang, noshing through a blue ice cake and bamboo.
Visiting the zoo’s three giant pandas – which also include Tian Tian and Xiao Qi Ji – would typically be the sisters’ first stop on weekend visits. It was usually hard to get a word out from Judy Young as she concentrated on taking close-up shots of Tian Tian, whom she felt most connected to, climbing trees or munching on bamboo leaves.
Following Young’s passing earlier this month, Noel said she made sure to join in on Mei Xiang’s birthday celebration to keep her sister’s memory alive. The sisters had followed the two eldest pandas since their arrival from China back in 2000.
Noel felt it especially important to attend Saturday since it may be the pandas’ last year in the United States. As part of an agreement with Chinese officials, the zoo announced three years ago that the pandas would head to China, which holds authority over all giant pandas residing in U.S. zoos, by the end of this year.
Zoo officials said Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, both 25 years old, are heading back because they are elderly. The 2-year-old cub will go because he is nearing breeding age. The zoo did not answer questions Saturday about whether the animals’ stay might be extended, or if China would potentially send replacement pandas.
“It’s going to be a heartbreak for us,” Steve Monfort, the zoo’s director in 2020, said following the announcement that year.
Sonal Purohit, 32, took a break from her studies at Yale University to visit the zoo on Saturday. While she’s never missed Mei Xiang’s birthday celebrations, she said this one was especially important to attend because of the possibility that it might be her last. Similar events will be held for the other two pandas’ birthdays next month.
Purohit always felt the most connected to Mei Xiang, who she views as a strong, playful panda. Zoo officials have also said she’s raised four cubs to adulthood, but has also experienced five false pregnancies.
“She’s just this amazing mom,” she said.
Like many others on Saturday, Purohit has seen the pandas grow up over the years through visits to the zoo and peering at the Smithsonian’s Giant Panda Cam. They’ve come to follow their lives over the decades by their sides.
“They’re part of our family now,” said Purohit, who sported panda ear headbands. “For us, they’re not just pandas. We know them really well. We know their personalities. We know what they like and dislike. The more you know about them, the more you just build a stronger connection.”
It makes the possibility of them leaving all the more emotional. Noel anticipates tears and sadness from those who have followed the animals over the last few decades, and a hollowness throughout the zoo in their potential absence.
Monfort said at the time of the 2020 announcement that some of the panda’s keepers have been with them their entire careers and would be “absolutely crushed when these animals go away – lots of tears will flow.”
The zoo has remained quiet on ongoing talks with China about pandas. “There’s no question that, when the time is right, we will approach them and begin discussions about the future of the program,” Monfort said at the time.
A zoo spokesperson said Saturday they had no additional updates.
The three great pandas currently at the zoo are among eight that it has housed since 1972, when President Richard M Nixon and first lady Pat Nixon made a historic Cold War visit to communist China, and the government gifted the American delegation with two of the animals.
Jennifer Friedline, 58, said keeping up with the giant pandas has resulted in lasting bonds and friendships among many of the animals’ loyal followers. After years of seeing the same faces at the zoo’s Asia Exhibit, they’ve gradually come to make conversation – friending each other on Facebook, forming group chats and eventually initiating social activities.
On Friedline’s right arm is a tattoo of Tai Shan (a former panda at the zoo) with his tongue sticking out, inspired by a picture that one of her friends in the group took of the panda when he was a cub.
Dozens of the friends were present during Saturday’s birthday celebration.
“These pandas mean so much to us and we wanted to make sure we were here,” she said.
For Anshul Rana, the weekend celebration was a chance to spend one-on-one time with his 3-year-old daughter, Leila Sinha Rana.
He usually brings her to the zoo to teach her about animals and wildlife. Having emigrated from India, Rana wants to make sure his daughter understands what wildlife can look like outside the United States. So, as they venture out into the zoo, Rana tells her facts about various animals, including Bengal tigers, leopards and elephants, hoping she can solidify a connection herself.
Sinha Rana smiled as her father broke the news Saturday morning they were headed to the zoo to celebrate Mei Xiang. “Pandas eat bamboo,” she told her father as they boarded the Metro. Her father had previously told her, and the information stuck.
As they walked throughout the Asia Exhibit to see the pandas behind plexi-glass walls and metal fencing, Rana told the little girl even more panda stories and facts, while she remained locked in his arms.
“It’s important for her to be here,” he said. “And it’s important for the zoo to have these animals here.”
