The famous three-year-old giant panda Bao Bao will depart the U.S. for China on Tuesday, where she will join a panda breeding program.
Bao Bao was the first surviving cub born at the National Zoo since 2005, and has enchanted zoo visitors and others who watched her via live “panda cam” footage.
Bao Bao is scheduled to depart the zoo on Tuesday morning and travel to Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, where she’ll board a special FedEx plane. Fans will be able to watch her departure from the zoo and airport on the zoo’s Facebook page.
The 3-year-old will be the only panda on the plane, travelling with a keeper and a veterinarian.
The panda will travel in a special metal crate the size of a double bed, where she can stretch out in.
Once Bao Bao arrives in Chengdu, China, she will be driven to her new home in one of the bases run by the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.
In time, when she reaches sexual maturity, between 5 and 6 years old, Bao Bao will join a panda breeding program.
The National Zoo says Bao Bao is traveling now because it’s better for pandas to travel in the winter months when it is cool.
Bao Bao means “precious treasure” in Chinese, and is described by her keepers as a “very independent” panda.
Laurie Thompson, the assistant curator of giant pandas, said keepers have been preparing Bao Bao to leave for China since she was born, teaching her behaviors that will allow her Chinese keepers to do things like draw blood and perform ultrasounds.
With Bao Bao’s departure, the National Zoo will have three remaining pandas. The zoo’s two adult pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, arrived on loan in 2000 but belong to China, as do any cubs they have. The pair’s first cub, Tai Shan, returned to China in 2010. Their third cub, Bao Bao’s younger brother Bei Bei, was born in 2015 and will remain at the zoo for now.
