Pandas Are Returning! Bao Bao’s Son Is Coming to Visit DC

It has just been announced that pandas are returning to DC!

Qing Bao and Bao Li, both two years old, are pandas born at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP) in Sichuan who will travel to the Smithsonian National Zoo by the end of the year.

And as if that news wasn’t enough to excite DC panda-monium… one of the new bears is the grandcub of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, who lived in DC from 2000 to 2023! According to the Smithsonian, “Bao Li, a male whose name means “treasure” and “energetic” in Mandarin, is the cub of father An An, and mother Bao Bao, born here at NZCBI in 2013.”

He will be joined by Qing Bao. Her name means “green” and “treasure.”

Through a partnership with China that has spanned more than five decades, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute says the work has grown the giant panda population, advanced shared understanding of how to care for the panda bear, and discovered what’s needed to protect wild pandas and preserve their native habitat.