Giant pandas leave National Zoo for return to China

Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The last of the giant pandas that have been part of the National Zoo in Washington for about five decades are on their way to a new home in China, starting with an airplane flight on Wednesday.

Two pandas, the male and female Tian Tian, 26, and MeiXiang, 25, along with their son Xiao Qi Ji, 3, were placed in trucks on their way to Dulles International Airport for a 19-hour trip to Chengdu, China.

China owns and leases all the giant pandas at U.S. zoos. The lease for the pandas at the National Zoo ends Dec. 7.

"We knew that this day would come," one of the panda's handlers Nicole MacCorkle said. "It'll take us a while, but life will go on here at the zoo. It'll be a void that all of us will feel, and I think all of Washington's going to feel."

The first pair of giant pandas first arrived in Washington in 1972 after President Richard Nixon visited China amid the Cold War.

After Wednesday's departure, the zoo will be without giant pandas for the first time in 23 years.

Zoo officials said the pandas will be accompanied by animal care experts and a flight crew from Washington, D.C., going west across the Pacific Ocean to Chengdu, China. The flight will make one stop for refueling in Anchorage, Alaska.

The pandas will arrive at their new home at the China Wildlife Conservation Association by the end of the week.

"It's a place where they have lots and lots of giant pandas, very similar to what you would see -- how our giant pandas live here, very similar to that," said Bryan Amral senior curator at the National Zoo.

"They just have a lot more giant pandas than we have. Where we have elephants and, you know, all kinds of other things, they have just pandas."