The San Francisco Zoo is set to receive a pair of giant pandas under a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday by Mayor London Breed and the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
The announcement that pandas would be coming to the zoo did not include a timeline, but the mayor's office said it would hinge on completion of a panda enclosure. Planning has begun and engineers from the Beijing Zoo traveled to the city to meet with zoo engineers the week, according to Breed.
“I have some really exciting news,” Breed said in a video posted to X. “We have some cute cuddly black and white beauties coming to our city.”
In the 1980s, the zoo temporarily hosted pandas from China as part of a global tour, but Thursday's announcement marks the first official lease agreement for the rare animals to reside at San Francisco Zoo.
Breed said having pandas at the zoo "will strengthen our already deep cultural connection and honors our Chinese and API heritage that is core to San Francisco's history."
A push to bring the pandas to the Bay actually began months ago.
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“This is not only big news for the zoo, but for our entire San Francisco community,” said Cassandra Costello with the San Francisco Travel Association. “This will also strengthen our ties with China which is an important visitor market for San Francisco. We couldn’t be more excited.”
In a statement, the San Francisco Zoo said in part, "We’re thrilled for the return of the giant panda after all these years. The giant panda symbolizes hope for conservation collaboration and bridges divides between cultural differences."
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Regular visitors to the zoo were thrilled to hear the news.
“That's exciting, we want more animals in the zoo. I think it will be very exciting,” said Jeremy Lacson.
Though Breed made the announcement, the late Mayor Ed Lee also had a lot to do with brining those pandas.
“It was just such a great moment, it took seven years to do this, it would have made Mayor Lee very proud,” said Francis Tsang, former deputy chief of staff for Mayor Lee.
He said Lee chose him to go to China in 2017 and deliver a very important letter from Lee asking for giant pandas.
Also part of that trip was Lee’s wife Anita Lee as well as Melinda Yee Franklin, who at the time was an executive at United Airlines.
“I know it was important to him as a Chinese American mayor as well as a citizen of San Francisco that this was a great bridge between the two countries,” said Yee Franklin.
Her visit to the Chengdu research base of giant panda breeding is one she won’t forget.
“What struck me was how much joy it brought to the visitors to the Chengdu Panda Research Center, it was quite a beautiful experience and something we certainly wanted to replicate in San Francisco someday,” she said.
