Pandas are coming back to the Atlanta zoo

In 2024, Atlantans said goodbye to pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang who had lived at the zoo since they arrived as 2-year-old cubs in 1999. They and their two offspring went back to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding after a big farewell celebration dubbed “Panda-Palooza,” the AJC reported at the time.

This move wasn’t necessarily a surprise. Zoo leadership previously told the AJC that they were hopeful Atlanta had chances to again become panda hosts in the future. They kept the area where the pandas previously resided off limits to visitors but did not raze it.

“We can’t wait to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our Members, guests, city, and community back to the wonder and joy of giant pandas,” Raymond B. King, the zoo’s president and CEO, said in a news release.

Zoo Atlanta did not have officials available for comment on Thursday evening after the news came out. The release did not state when the new pandas are coming, though based on the two most recent panda pairs that arrived at the San Diego Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington D.C., the public may be able to see Ping Ping and Fu Shuang before the end of the year.

For a period of time in 2023 and 2024, Zoo Atlanta was the only zoo in North America to have pandas after China took back pandas from the National Zoo in Washington D.C. and the San Diego Zoo.

But before Zoo Atlanta returned Lun Lun and Yang Yang to China in October of 2024, the San Diego Zoo welcomed Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, the first pandas to arrive in the United States in 21 years. The National Zoo also brought in two new panda denizens in October of that year, four months after making a public announcement. Customers were able to view Bao Li and Qing Bao in January.

The National Zoo in Washington D.C. announced the pending arrival of its current panda denizens in May, 2024, about four months before they showed up and seven months before they were displayed to the public in early 2025. It took about the same amount of time for two new pandas to arrive at the San Diego Zoo after a similar announcement.

The 2024 departure marked a major juncture: the first time in a quarter century the zoo operated without its beloved black and white pandas, which were reliable tourist magnets.

The partnership between Zoo Atlanta and China was beneficial for China as well. Zoo Atlanta contributed $17 million over 25 years to panda conservation work in China, which has built more than 65 panda reserves. The panda’s status was upgraded from endangered to vulnerable in 2016 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Information on when the pandas will arrive was not released.

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