Advertisement
Animals
Lifestyle

Bei Bei bye bye: devoted US keeper waves farewell to giant panda cub before he heads to China

  • At the age of four, the last panda cub at the US National Zoo is leaving for China to enter a breeding programme
  • His keeper, who has been with him since birth, talks about 25 years of working with pandas

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Bei Bei, the National Zoo's last panda cub, with Laurie Thompson, the zoo's assistant curator of giant pandas. Bei Bei is leaving for China. Photo: Amanda Voisard/The Washington Post
The Washington Post

After they arrive in China, Laurie Thompson hopes to get a few minutes alone with Bei Bei, a giant panda at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (commonly known as the National Zoo) in Washington DC. It will be a farewell for both, and the end of an era for the zoo, where Thompson has worked for almost 25 years.

She and Bei Bei have been together since he was born four years ago. She held him when he was a hairless cub. She was the one who called the veterinary surgeons when he got sick, and was with him for his operation. They know each other well. He comes when she calls, and squawks if he wants something. She says he’s a good boy.

Next week, she will accompany Bei Bei on the plane that will carry him to his new home in China.

“I think there’s going to be some tears,” Thompson, the assistant curator of giant pandas and the zoo’s longest-serving giant panda keeper, said. “To leave him in a new place, although I know he’ll be getting great care, it’s just sad.”

Bei Bei is the last of the zoo’s three giant panda cubs to depart, and could be the last cub in Washington for a while, closing a joyous chapter in local history that began 14 years ago. China owns and leases all giant pandas in US zoos. The animals, and especially their cubs, have been part of the relationship between the two countries through good times and bad, from the cold war to the current trade tensions.

Advertisement