Two giant pandas have touched down in Atlanta on a jet donated for the trip, bringing pandas back to the city’s zoo for the first time since its last bears left in 2024.
Ping Ping, a male born on March 17, 2020, and Fu Shuang, a female born on Oct. 18, 2020, landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Sept. 27 aboard a FedEx Boeing 777 branded the “FedEx Panda Express,” with FedEx donating the flight.
Both were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. Fu Shuang’s name is pronounced Foo Shwong.
“This is a thrilling day for Zoo Atlanta and a historic moment for the City of Atlanta,” said Raymond B. King, the zoo’s president and CEO.
Visitors will have to be patient, as the pair are spending about a month in quarantine in a biosecure area of the zoo’s new giant panda complex and are not yet on view.
Their arrival makes Zoo Atlanta one of three zoos in the U.S. with giant pandas, and the only one in the Southeast. The bears come under an International Cooperative Research Agreement on Giant Panda Conservation with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
The species itself has been heading in the right direction. Giant pandas were moved from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016, and about 1,900 now live in the wild, with 72% of them protected on nature reserves.
Zoo Atlanta has not yet set a date for Ping Ping and Fu Shuang’s public debut, which will come once quarantine is over.
