First look at new giant pandas at San Diego Zoo
2 Video Views·Aug 19, 2025
The San Diego Zoo released its first images of Yun Chuan and Xin Bao as they get used to their new habitat after arriving from China. They're the first pandas to come to the United States in more than two decades, reviving a tradition of panda diplomacy. NBC News' Liz Kreutz reports.
They're objectively the country's cutest diplomats, and they're officially now on U.S. soil. The San
Diego Zoo sharing these sneak peek images of five-year-old Yunxuan and four-year-old
Xing Bao, the first giant pandas to enter the United States in more than 20 years.
It's exciting, really. It's exciting, like, so cool.
The adorable duo's journey from China began two weeks ago after months of preparation,
the first of even more pandas bound for the U.S., including Washington, D.C., later this year.
It all marks a revival of China's panda diplomacy, which began in 1972
when a pair of pandas first arrived to the nation's capital.
I think pandemonium is going to break out right here at the zoo.
52 years later, the feeling hasn't changed.
It is so special for everybody. Our team members now get to care for them again.
Now, it's still unknown when the pandas will be viewable to the public. They're
currently in quarantine, but zoo officials say they're settling in well to their new California
life. The zoo, writing the girl Xing Bao, loves sunbathing and showering down on her favorite
food, bamboo, while the boy, Yunxuan, has been spending his days climbing trees or rolling in
the grass.
It's wonderful that they want to bring them back so that everybody can see the pandas.
I think this is what peace is.
The two now forever friends, helping make the strained relations between their old
and new countries a little more bearable. Liz Kreutz, NBC News.
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