SAINT AIGNAN: The first giant panda to have been born in France received an emotional send-off on Tuesday as he left his French zoo ahead of the long haul flight back to his ancestral China.

Yuan Meng, who was born in 2017 in the Beauval zoo in the Loire region of France, was cheered by visitors and zoo staff as he was driven under police escort to Charles de Gaulle airport for a 12-hour Air China flight to the Chinese city of Chengdu.

Trained for several days to get ready comfortably for the trip, the son of Yuan Zi and Huan Huan — the first pandas loaned to France by the Chinese authorities in 2012 — did not show much hesitation in climbing into his special cage filled with bamboo for his trip.

“Everything went well. He said goodbye to his parents and his sisters, with tears in the eyes of his keepers,” said Rodolphe Delord, head of the zoo.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2023