CHENGDU: A giant panda couple left their southwest China home on a passenger plane Friday for a 10-year stay in Australia, which will be the first time for the endangered species to live in the southern hemisphere.
Aboard flight SQ7855 of Singapore Airlines, 4-year-old male Wang Wang and 3-year-old female Fu Ni left Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, at 5:30 p.m. and are expected to land at Adelaide International Airport in southern Australia at about 10:10 a.m. Saturday (Beijing Time) after a brief stopover in Singapore.
The couple were transferred to Chengdu Friday noon after more than two hours” journey from the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Ya”an City of Sichuan.
Two specialists from China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, Huang Yan and Luo Bo, will accompany the pandas in Adelaide until they are adapted to the new environment.
Wang Wang, meaning “the web”, was born on Aug. 31, 2005. He is half-brother to Yuan Yuan, the female panda sent to Taiwan. He is gentle and tame, and weighs 115 kilograms.
Fu Ni, meaning “happy girl”, was born in 2006 and weighs 90 kilograms. She”s lively and enjoys climbing trees and frolicking in water.
The couple will stay in Australia for 10 years under the two countries” agreement for a joint research on the species.
A brief farewell ceremony was held for the two pandas at the Ya”an Nature Reserve, where they had lived since their former homes in Wolong were destroyed in the May 12 earthquake last year.
Simone Bayly, a senior zoologist from Adelaide, said the Australian zoo keepers would treat the pandas as their own children.
