Paris, France

The first giant panda to have been born on French soil, Yuan Meng, received an emotional goodbye as it departed from the country’s ZooParc de Beauval, or Beauval Zoo, on Tuesday (July 25) morning. The male panda will take the long-haul flight back from the French capital city of Paris to Chengdu, the capital of the Chinese province of Sichuan. 

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An emotional send-off

Yuan Meng, whose name means “dream come true” in Mandarin, was born in August 2017, in the Beauval Zoo, Loire region of central France. “Everything went well. He said goodbye to his parents and his sisters, with tears in the eyes of his keepers,” said Rodolphe Delord, CEO of ZooParc de Beauval. 

He added, “He can now continue to live his good life. It’s inevitably a moment of emotion, but all our animals born here are forced to leave one day. We’re used to that.” 

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Ahead of his departure, hundreds of people lined up outside the zoo as Yuan Meng, the six-year-old panda, had his final breakfast of bamboo stalks, in the presence of Lu Shaye, Chinese Ambassador to France and Delord. The truck slowly drove by hundreds of people, waving flags, gathered to bid farewell.

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“It’s still sad, we got attached to the pandas. But we know he’ll be better off there, for the good of the species,” said Caroline Bernard, who was there with her nine-year-old daughter Lilou, as per AFP. 

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“I cried, I am sad he is leaving. But I am trying to tell myself that he will be better off there. It’s for his own good,” said Lilou with tears in her eyes. 

About his journey

According to the zoo’s website, Yuan Meng left from there around 9:00 am (local time) and will be driven to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, with a police escort. Subsequently, the giant panda will take a special flight by China Airlines scheduled for 5:00 pm (local time) and land in Chengdu after 12 hours. 

Caretaker Delphine Pouvreau and veterinarian Antoine Leclerc will accompany Yuan Meng to feed him bamboo and give him water during the flight. Zoo officials also said that they had been preparing the young panda for the long journey. 

China’s panda diplomacy

Yuan Meng is the son of  Yuan Zi and Huan Huan, the first pandas loaned to France by the Chinese authorities in 2012. China has long deployed so-called panda diplomacy with friends and even foes like the United States and Taiwan, in a supposed bid for furthering their foreign policy aims. 

The Chinese ambassador to France, on Tuesday, said that France’s hosting of Yuan Meng strengthens relations between Beijing and Paris, as well as conservation efforts for the giant panda, which is classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Why is Yuan Meng leaving?

Once in Chengdu, the panda will be sent to a panda reproduction centre. In line with China’s policy where pandas are only loaned to foreign zoos who are expected to return any offspring within a few years of their birth to join the country’s breeding programme.

According to the Swiss-based environmental group, World Wide Fund (WWF), there are around 1,860 giant pandas left in the wild, predominantly located in the Chinese mountains in bamboo forests. While there are some 600 in captivity in panda centres, zoos and wildlife parks across the world. 

(With inputs from agencies) 

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