San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria met twice in January with Chinese officials as the San Diego Zoo sought to secure a loan agreement to acquire two giant pandas, according to public records released Wednesday by the city.
Gloria, along with Chief of Staff Paola Avila, met at the zoo’s Warner Administration Building on Jan. 4. According to the mayor’s calendar, the meeting was scheduled to last a half-hour and include “Zoo Leadership.” It did not list the names of those who attended the session.
Documents previously released by the city showed that a representative from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles asked to meet with Gloria at the zoo Jan. 3 or Jan. 4 to discuss “how we could promote mutually-beneficial cooperation, especially on Panda breeding, and people-to-people exchanges.”
Gloria also attended a second meeting in January related to the panda quest — this time at a Hilton hotel in Universal City in Los Angeles County, according to city records released this week.
Gloria was accompanied at that Jan. 26 meeting by Javier Gomez, the mayor’s director of global affairs. The pair attended an event commemorating the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the U.S., records show.
Less than a month later, San Diego Wildlife Alliance officials announced a panda loan agreement had been signed.
“We’re very excited and hopeful,” Megan Owen of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and vice president of Wildlife Conservation Science told The Associated Press at the time. “They’ve expressed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to re-initiate panda cooperation starting with the San Diego Zoo.”
Officials said the pandas sent to the zoo could include a female descendent of Bai Yun and Gao Gao, two of the zoo’s former residents. If all permits and other requirements are approved, a male and female panda are expected to arrive by the end of summer, officials have said.
The partnership agreement also will include research on disease prevention and habitat protection and contribute to China’s national panda park construction, Wildlife Alliance officials said.
Back in November, Chinese President Xi Jinping raised panda hopes when he told leaders of San Francisco’s business community that California would get pandas in 2024 — and he mentioned the San Diego Zoo by name.
Since then, zoo officials have been tight-lipped about plans for welcoming back pandas, which were last at the zoo in 2019.
San Francisco Zoo had hoped to get their own panda loan — with San Francisco Mayor London Breed sending a Dec. 1 letter to Chinese officials signaling her city zoo’s interest. But there has not been any announcement about an arrangement. The China Wildlife Conservation Association has said it signed panda agreements with the zoo in Madrid, and is in panda talks with zoos in Washington, D.C., and Vienna.
Giant pandas in zoos in Memphis and Washington, D.C. were returned to China last year, leaving the only remaining pandas in the U.S. at a zoo in Atlanta.
For years, giant pandas were considered endangered, but the species status was upgraded to vulnerable in 2016. There are an estimated 1,800 of the animals in the wild, with another 600 living in zoos and breeding centers, according to the National Zoo.
