What’s new: Seventeen giant pandas came home to China last year, a milestone in the country’s ongoing efforts to increase the species’ population by lending out the animals overseas.
The pandas returned from countries including Japan, the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Malaysia, the U.K. and Germany, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.
The pandas had to return because they were about 4 years old, usually considered the age of sexual maturity, or because the cooperation agreements China had signed with those countries expired, the report said.
So far, China has worked with 18 countries to protect the species, the report said. A total of 56 pandas are now living abroad.
The background: China has long worked to protect the once-endangered animals, taking steps such as ending the practice of giving away pandas as gifts in 1982. Instead, in 1984, China began lending out the animals under agreements that require they be returned.
In 2021, China downgraded the conservation level of the giant panda from “endangered” to “vulnerable” as its population recovered, following a similar move in 2016 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
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