Male Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport aboard a specially chartered aircraft. Zoo Atlanta confirmed their arrival on Sunday and said the pandas had been moved directly to a biosecurity area in its new giant panda complex for a routine quarantine of about one month.
Both pandas were born in 2020 and previously lived at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. They departed Chengdu before travelling to the United States. Zoo Atlanta president and chief executive Raymond B. King described their arrival as a significant day for the zoo, Atlanta and Georgia.
The 10-year placement is part of an international cooperative research agreement on giant panda conservation between Zoo Atlanta and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. The partnership was first announced in April, although a date for the pandas’ arrival had not yet been set.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the pandas would reach Atlanta within days during a three-day meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington last week. Their arrival was one tangible outcome of the visit. Xi has described panda cooperation as an example of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
Zoo Atlanta has been without giant pandas since its previous animals left in 2024. It is now one of three zoological institutions in the United States to house the species and the only zoo in the southeastern United States with giant pandas.