[DiaryPoint | Reporter Choi Seung-jin] Giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, who arrived from China, made their first public appearance on Nov. 6 at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia. The two six-year-old pandas drew visitors on opening day, returning to a zoo that had been without pandas for two years, since its previous residents went back to China in 2024.
Ping Ping, a male, was born on March 17, 2020, and Fu Shuang, a female, on Oct. 18 that year, at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. The zoo says Ping Ping’s name, given along with his twin brother’s, expresses the hope that they will lead smooth, healthy lives. Fu Shuang’s name comes from “Fu Ru,” a name linked to her mother, and means happiness.
The pandas now live at the newly renovated Arthur M. Blank Panda Grove. The zoo invested $6 million to expand the indoor living areas and add climbable structures and pools to each indoor habitat. It also added new climbing structures outdoors. The pandas spent several weeks acclimating to their unfamiliar surroundings before their debut.
The zoo describes Ping Ping as playful and Fu Shuang as relatively calm. Zoo Atlanta CEO Raymond King called the pair “goofy troublemakers,” adding that Fu Shuang is the quieter one. The two had not lived together before arriving in Atlanta, so their keepers are helping them gradually get used to one another from separate spaces.
The move is part of an international giant panda research agreement between Zoo Atlanta and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. The pandas will stay in Atlanta for 10 years. The zoo’s previous partnership with China began in 1999 and concluded in 2024; the former panda pair, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, had seven cubs between 2006 and 2016. At the public event, Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng said the pandas’ return marked “a new chapter in a 10-year bond between China and Atlanta.”