The pandas, both 19 years old, arrived at the Ueno Zoo in 2011. Although their lease is good through 2026, Japan and China agreed to their return home as the aging couple need treatment for high ...

including Japan, France, Britain and Germany, over the next decade. When the panda population dwindled in the 1980s, Beijing stopped gifting pandas but turned to more lucrative short-term leasing ...

Thousands of Japanese fans have bid a tearful farewell to two pandas that made their final public appearance at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo on Saturday before returning to China for medical treatment.

The center expressed deep sorrow over the passing of the panda, who "opened a new chapter in international conservation cooperation for giant pandas." Eimei came to Japan on loan in 1994 at age 1 ...