Panda bears are not known to be particularly able survivors. Though equipped with the teeth and the digestive system of a carnivore, the creatures consume almost exclusively bamboo—a plant about as filling and nutritious as celery. Pandas also make for terrible parents, if they can even procreate in the first place. However, in the last few decades, the bears—a symbol of global conservation efforts—have seen their numbers rise, and over the past several years, they’ve been removed from various lists of “endangered” species.
This is likely a result of the panda’s greatest (and perhaps only) evolutionary advantage: They are especially cute—a trait that has successfully recruited the human species as their protectors.
It’s probably because of this trait that Washington is in panda-monium. Pandas made their grand return to the Smithsonian National Zoo on Friday with the official public premiere of bear pair Bao Li and Qing Bao, who are on loan from China for the next decade.
D.C.’s previous panda family—Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, and cub Xiao Qi Ji—was recalled to its home country last year after the expiration of an agreement with China’s conservation agency. Uneasy relations between the U.S. and Beijing clouded hopes for renegotiation. But in May 2024, the zoo announced that pandas would return by the end of the year, continuing a 50-year legacy of pandas living in the nation’s capital.
“Panda Diplomacy” began in 1972 with President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. Pandas Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling were given to the United States as a sign of good will, and in hopes that the two nations could work together to protect the species. President Nixon, in return, gave his Chinese hosts a pair of musk oxen.
For the next 50 years, National Zoo keepers and scientists worked to protect and breed pandas, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the first cub to survive into adulthood was born in D.C. Four panda cubs in total—Tai Shan, Bao Bao, Bei Bei, and Xiao Qi Ji—have been born at the zoo. Each birth was special, kicking off yearlong celebrations in the city. I was in D.C. for college when Bao Bao and Bei Bei were born, and there’s just nothing like the pomp and circumstance of a panda party.
My fiancée Angelica and I left for the zoo on a frigid mid-January Saturday morning for our panda-viewing appointment, a 30-minute window carefully scheduled by the zoo so as not to overwhelm their newest residents. We made our way through the sprawling campus toward the midcentury brutalist architecture that, unfortunately, houses the panda enclosure. (“It looks like a crappy block in North Philadelphia,” one Dispatch national correspondent opined in the company Slack). New life was palpable among the dated digs. Panda fanatics buzzed with excitement, decked out in panda ponchos, hats and scarves, black-and-white sweatshirts, and panda-printed leggings. Kids with stuffed pandas paraded around while their parents snacked on panda-branded M&Ms.
We scanned into the Asia Trail section of the zoo and waited to be let in along with the other 50 or so panda fans scheduled for our time. Rumors swirled that one of the bears was lounging about the outdoor section of the enclosure, just beyond the rope barrier. Finally, our time came, but the crowd came to a stop mere steps into the viewing section. Curled up in a furry black-and-white heap on top of a snowy hill was a sleeping Qing Bao, absolutely oblivious to her adoring fans.
“Oh my God,” Angelica said, upon seeing a panda bear live for the very first time. Her voice trailed off, overwhelmed by the cuteness.
When the National Zoo announced last year that pandas would return after almost a year, the notice included a clever sales pitch: Zoo members would be able to see the bears two weeks before the general public. More than worth the $100 annual fee, I thought. I wasn’t alone.
Longtime panda fan Nicole D., from Catonsville, Maryland, was outfitted in a panda sweatshirt and panda backpack, and sporting a professional-grade camera draped around her neck. “I dropped my membership,” she told me at the members-only preview, reflecting on her reaction to the former panda family’s departure. “I renewed so I could get in and see them early.”
“I saw Bei Bei right after [he] was born,” Nicole told me, in between snapping photos of the sleeping panda. “And when I happened to come through that day with the member prescreening, the mom had him up and was licking him and giving him a bath, and then kissed him. And I got that picture.”
Everyone in D.C. has a panda story. They vividly recall a tumble or a sneeze or a slide down a snowy hill. For some people, panda milestones count alongside personal ones. “I interviewed for my current job in August of 2015, I think it was the same day that Bei Bei was born,” said Julia Kennedy of Silver Spring, Maryland. “So for me they kind of feel like a symbol of the city.”
The pandas have united D.C. through good times and bad, with Xiao Qi Ji, the most recent cub born at the zoo, being perhaps uniquely special to D.C. residents. He was born in August 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, to a panda mom that experts believed was too old to carry another baby. “It was like this little spark of life for everybody,” said Nicole. “Nobody thought that [Mei Xiang] could have another one, and she did and raised it healthful, you know?”
We made our way inside the panda house, a concrete cavern divided neatly into separate enclosures for each bear, adorned with murals of bamboo forests and mountains. The crowd gathered at the far end of the hall. On the other side of the glass, on top of a wooden climbing structure against the back wall, slept Bao Li, upside down and partially hanging off the ledge.
To watch a panda sleep is to experience pure joy. The giant bears do nothing for long stretches of time, but the crowds are excited to stare at them just the same. Sean Kennedy, who has been coming to the National Zoo for most of his life, was just happy to be there. “Not my first panda rodeo,” he said in a hushed tone, so as not to disturb the sleeping bear behind the glass. “I feel very spoiled having seen them for, you know, 30 years now.”
Bao Li stirred—the crowd buzzed in anticipation of some action—and rolled over, facing away from the adoring horde. There were muted “awws.” A couple children loudly expressed their disappointment. But: “Panda butt,” observed Nicole, “is better than no panda at all.”
“To watch a panda sleep is to experience pure joy.”
There was a reverence in the room, almost, as members reflected on the new bears’ place in the long history of D.C. pandas. “I grew up with the zoo around here, and my grandma, who passed right at the beginning of the pandemic—not from Covid but in 2020—she loved the Panda Cam, she would watch it every day,” Christine H. from Herndon, Virginia, told me, referring to the livestream on the National Zoo’s website. More than 100 million viewers have tuned in since the feed launched in 2001.
“When the pandas were coming I just felt really nostalgic for them,” Christine continued, “I was like, I really wanted to support the pandas and be around them, and it just kind of, like, reminds me of my grandma.” (She choked up a bit here.)
As if on cue, Bao Li woke up, stretched, and lumbered toward a stack of bamboo. This, naturally, brought us to rapt silence. He sat upright—very humanlike, if you ask me—grabbed a branch, and got to munching. The professional cameras wielded by amateur photographers for just this moment started to click.
He moved to a shallow, empty pool and reached for a large blue drum-like enrichment toy, and tossed the cylindrical puzzle around in effort to get the treats hidden within. He lay back and spun the drum around with his hands and paws like a circus performer. He knows we’re here, I thought. He knows he’s the star of the show.
The puzzle is quite a lot of effort for little reward, and pandas are notoriously lazy. So about eight minutes into his project, Bao Li got up and lumbered closer to the glass paneling separating him from the crowd. A carefully placed pile of bamboo shoots sat waiting. The crowd swooned.
After a swing of his paw to grab a shoot—missed, try again—and a cavalier kick of the leg to sit more comfortably on the stone seat,Bao Li was lunching once more. Julia Kennedy let out a laugh. “I love how, no matter what they do, they breathe and everyone’s like…” she said, mimicking the hyperventilating sound an overexcited child might make.
Tired from the attention—or perhaps finally full—Bao Li wandered toward his concrete cave. He deserved the break. Pretty soon, privacy would be scarce.
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