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Japan’s last two pandas leaving for China next month, Ueno Zoo announces final day for twins

Casey Baseel Dec 17, 2025
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When Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei leave Tokyo, it’ll bring an end to more than 50 years of pandas in Japan.

Ueno Zoo is both the biggest zoo in Tokyo and the most conveniently located, just a quick walk from Ueno Station, making it easy to combine a visit to the zoo with a stop by one of Ueno Park’s museums or a stroll along its tree-lined paths. But beyond scale and accessibility, there’s another key reason for Ueno Park’s popularity: pandas.

Let’s go back in time to the early 1970s, when Japan had a panda population of zero. In 1972, though, Japan and the People’s Republic of China established normalized diplomatic relations with each other, and to commemorate the occasion, China sent a pair of giant pandas, Kang Kang and Lan Lan, to Ueno Zoo.

▼ Kang Kang and Lan Lan getting celebrity-levels of attention as they arrive in Japan.

Japan being a country that loves cute animals, Kang Kang and Lan Lan caused a stir that could only be described as pandemonium, to explicitly state the pun that we were all already thinking of. Over the years, other pandas would come in and out of Ueno Zoo, but it’s now been announced that its two current pandas, male Xiao Xiao and female Lei Lei, will both be sent to China next month. Making the situation even sadder for panda fans is that they’re the last two pandas left anywhere in Japan.

While the announcement comes with very little time until the animals will depart, the fact itself that they’re being sent to China isn’t a shock. Though twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei were born at Ueno Zoo in 2021, their parents, Ri Ri and Shin Shin, were on a long-term loan from the China Wildlife Conservation Association for breeding research. As part of the agreement, any panda babies born on Ri Ri’s and Shin Shin’s romantic sojourn in Japan, which lasted from 2011 to 2024, would belong to China, and would thus one day need to be returned to the country. Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei’s older sister, Xiang Xiang, who was born in Ueno in 2017 and was the zoo’s first panda baby since 1988, already made the move to China in February of 2023.

▼ Xiang Xiang in 2017

The deadline for Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei to be transferred to China is coming up on February 20, and rather than leave everything to the very last minute, Ueno Zoo says that the pair will leave Japan in late January, with their last day of public viewing scheduled for January 25.

There have been periods when Ueno Zoo was without any pandas, but they’ve been a relatively regular presence at the facility, becoming a symbol not just of the zoo, but of the Ueno neighborhood itself. What’s more, since Kang Kang and Lan Lan’s arrival in 1972, there have always been pandas somewhere in Japan, but with the four pandas that were being cared for at Wakayama Adventure Park in Wakayama Prefecture having been returned to China in June of this year, once Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei depart Japan will be entirely without pandas for the first time in 54 years.

▼ Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei in a video recorded at Ueno Zoo last Thursday

Given the narrow window between the announcement and Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei’s last day at Ueno Zoo, large crowds are expected of fans coming to wish them goodbye. Because of that, online reservations will be required to access the zoo’s panda enclosure viewing area starting December 23.

As for whether Ueno Zoo will ever have panda residents again, that’s up to the Chinese side of negotiations, as the zoo says it has already submitted an application for another pair of pandas to come visit, but has yet to receive any sort of substantial replay from its counterparts. Even if the request hasn’t been outright denied, though, with diplomatic relations between the Chinese and Japanese governments fairly frosty these days, it’s unlikely that it’s going to be granted with any sense of urgency. Still, Ueno Zoo is remaining optimistic, in the long-term view, and says it has no plans to use the panda enclosure to house other species after Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei depart, and will be keeping it in suitable condition so that it can welcome new pandas and have them move in if/when their application is accepted.

Source: Jiji via Livedoor News via Jin, TBS News Dig
Top image: PR Times
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