What to know about the pandas coming to the San Francisco Zoo

The San Francisco Zoo will receive a pair of giant pandas from China, according to a statement released Friday by San Francisco officials.

London Breed, the city’s mayor, visited Beijing last week to meet with the China Wildlife Conservation Association, as well as other organizations and local leaders. There, she announced an agreement through which San Francisco will host the pandas “as part of China’s Panda Diplomacy program.”

“San Francisco is absolutely thrilled that we will be welcoming Giant Pandas to our San Francisco Zoo,” Breed said in the statement. “It’s an honor that our City has been chosen for the first time to be a long-term home for Giant Pandas.”

The mayor also spoke about the announcement in a post to her X (formerly Twitter) account.

Breed had been advocating for the pandas since last year, when San Francisco hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, according to the statement.

“The memorandum of understanding signed by Mayor Breed and (the association) is the first official leased agreement for Giant Pandas to have residency at the San Francisco Zoo. In 1984 and again in 1985, the San Francisco Zoo temporarily hosted Giant Pandas from China as part of a global tour,” the statement said.

When will the pandas be at the San Francisco Zoo?

The memorandum, which was shared by The San Francisco Standard, says that the China Wildlife Conservation Association will guide the city’s zoo “to make full preparation for the giant panda facility building, food supply, technical expertise and personnel capability” for 2025.

ABC7 San Francisco reported that the mayor hopes to renovate an existing facility in time. Renovations will reportedly cost about $4 million, while a new exhibit will cost around $20 million. The zoo plans to initiate a “major fundraising effort,” ABC7 reported.

“These Giant Pandas will honor our deep cultural connections and our Chinese and (Asian and Pacific Islander) heritage. They will bring residents and visitors from all over who come to visit them at the (San Francisco) Zoo,” said the mayor in her post to X.

Panda diplomacy

The new agreement comes five months after Chinese leader Xi Jinping called pandas “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples” and suggested China could send more of them to the U.S. — specifically to the “San Diego Zoo and the Californians” — last November, as reported by CNN at the time.

During the Chinese leader’s visit to San Francisco, Mayor Breed personally asked him to consider letting her city’s zoo host pandas. She followed up with two letters to Xi and a visit to China, claimed The San Francisco Standard.

Xi’s November comments came after the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., gave its three pandas back to China, per CNN.

“Pandas have served as something of an unofficial barometer of China-US relations since 1972, when Beijing gifted a pair of the bears to the Smithsonian National Zoo. following US President Richard Nixon’s historic ice-breaking trip to China,” the article said.

More pandas are coming to California

In February, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that pandas will also be sent to the San Diego Zoo.

That agreement marked “the first time (China) has granted new panda loans in the US in two decades,” CNN reported.

At the time, Washington, D.C., was reportedly “in talks” with China to receive new pandas as well, per The San Diego Union-Tribune.