(Tokyo) Des milliers d’admirateurs japonais ont fait leurs adieux dimanche à quatre pandas qui doivent être rendus cette semaine à la Chine, pour laquelle ces mammifères constituent un moyen de resserrer ses liens diplomatiques avec d’autres pays.
Des visiteurs pour certains éplorés ont afflué au zoo d’Ueno, à Tokyo, pour apercevoir une dernière fois Xiang Xiang, un panda femelle qui a attiré les foules depuis sa naissance en 2017. D’autres se sont rendus dans un parc zoologique de la région de Wakayama pour dire au revoir à trois pandas également en partance.
À Tokyo, seules 2600 personnes choisies par tirage au sort ont pu assister à la dernière apparition de Xiang Xiang, le premier bébé panda du zoo depuis 1988. Mais cela n’a pas empêché ses admirateurs malchanceux de se rendre sur place.
« Je voulais respirer le même air […] Even though I cannot see her, my heart is filled with joy knowing that she is here,” Mari Asai told the Asahi Shimbun daily.
Ueno Zoo received daily calls and emails from fans asking them to keep the animal, the daily reported. Tokyo Shimbunciting a park official.
The mammal should have reached China in 2021 but its departure has been postponed several times due to travel restrictions linked to the pandemic.
In the Wakayama region, visitors greeted Eimei one last time – the panda who in 2020 became the oldest in the world to father at the height of his 28 years, the equivalent of more than 80 years for a human being – as well as her offspring, twin pandas.
“I’m sad they’re going back to China,” a 70-year-old told public broadcaster NHK.
These mammals, recognizable by their black and white fur, are very popular worldwide. China lends them as part of its “panda diplomacy”, intended to strengthen its ties with foreign countries.
According to the organization WWF, which acts in the field of environmental protection, there would remain in the wild some 1860 giant pandas, mainly in the bamboo forests of the mountainous regions of China.
About 600 of these animals live in captivity on the planet in centers dedicated to pandas, zoos and animal parks.