Ueno Zoo in Tokyo is expected to receive a pair of giant pandas from China early next year, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said Friday, unveiling a plan that would mark the return of the popular animals to the country's oldest zoo three years after the death of its last panda.
Ishihara said the Chinese side has agreed in principle to lease two pandas for $950,000 a year, money that Tokyo expects to be used for the preservation of wild animals in China. The zoo has been without a panda since the death in April 2008 of Ling Ling, its only giant panda at the time.
"We received very strong requests" from the zoo for a new panda, the governor said during a news conference. "The (lease) costs are not low. We asked for a discount and had them cut around $50,000."
In 2008, Ishihara described the panda's death as "not something that everyone should cry hard and feel sad about," adding "if you want to see one, you can just go where there is one and see it."
Male giant panda Ling Ling died of chronic heart failure aged 22 years and seven months, about 70 years in human terms. He had come to Ueno Zoo in 1992 from China in exchange for a Japan-born panda to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties.
China donated Lan Lan and Kang Kang as the first pair of giant pandas to Japan when the two countries normalized ties in 1972.
The endangered giant panda is considered a national treasure in China and the international conservation group WWF estimates there are around 1,600 pandas in the wild, with about 980 under protection in China's panda reserves.