SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A crowd of people, some weeping, gathered at a rain-soaked amusement park in South Korea to bid farewell to a beloved giant panda before her departure to China on Wednesday.
Fu Bao has been a major attraction at the Everland theme park near Seoul since she was born there in 2020 to pandas Ai Bao and Le Bao, who came from China in 2016 on a 15-year lease program.
China sends pandas abroad as a sign of goodwill but maintains ownership over the animals and their cubs. Decades of conservation efforts in the wild and study in captivity saved the species from extinction, increasing its population from fewer than 1,000 at one time to more than 1,800 in the wild and in captivity.
On Wednesday, many panda fans in South Korea braved rain to attend a farewell ceremony at the Everland park for Fu Bao, who was to be flown to China later in the day.