Although they don’t have airline tickets yet, the giant pandas at the Calgary Zoo are in quarantine and preparing for their trip back home to China.
Er Shun and Da Mao have been in Calgary since March of 2018 and were expected to remain through 2024 as part of a 10-year agreement between China and Canada.
However, because of a lack of flights due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been issues with shipments of high quality bamboo imported from China and the zoo was forced to make the difficult decision to send them home early.
“We’re working super hard to get the permitting,” said Calgary Zoo spokesperson Alison Archambault. “Because we don’t know their travel dates, we needed to take extra precautions to get them quarantining early.
“We’ll be sharing videos and photos closer to their departure because we know our visitors locally and around the world, just like our staff, are going to miss them.”
The Calgary Zoo reopens to the public on Saturday for the first time since shutting its doors because of the global health crisis. However, the panda exhibit remains closed to the public.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
