Nowhere outside China have there been so many pandas in one zoo as in Pairi Daiza, but that will change this year.
The three giant pandas born in the Pairi Daiza zoo in Hainaut must return to China to raise offspring there. The parents of the three, Xing Hui and Hao Hao, will remain in Brugelette for the time being. CEO Eric Domb succeeded in bringing them from China to our country in 2014. The fact that this honor belonged to Pairi Daiza and not the Antwerp Zoo was then the subject of a controversy that took on community proportions. Two years later, in 2016, a first offspring was born: the male Tian Bao. In 2019, the panda family expanded with the birth of twins, Bao Di and Bao Mei. The photos of the Belgian-born panda twins went around the world. Meanwhile, the oldest ‘baby panda’ is seven years old and the twins are turning five, which is the age at which pandas are considered adults.
“It is a dark side to our festive year,” says Domb, who is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pairi Daiza (formerly Paradisio) this year. “But we know it goes like this: all foreign-born baby pandas return to China. And we had the largest number of giant pandas outside China, with five specimens. There is still a five-year contract for the oldest pandas.
