The Chinese Embassy in Finland has responded to news of the Ähtäri Zoo pandas heading home. On Tuesday, Ähtäri Zoo announced that it has decided to return its two resident giant pandas to China due to severe financial difficulties.
In a written response to Yle, the diplomatic mission said Finland and China mutually agreed on the animals returning home.
In its message, the embassy said that it had attempted to help the struggling zoo by encouraging Chinese companies in Finland to make donations to it. Additionally, China said it has supported the zoo's debt restructuring, which Ähtäri Zoo this week announced it was planning to seek.
The feeding, housing and care of the two pandas, plus the species protection fee, cost around 1.5 million euros a year. An adult panda eats around 12 kilos of bamboo every day, which had to be shipped to Ähtäri all the way from the Netherlands. Bamboo alone has cost the zoo around 100,000 euros a year.
Presidents Sauli Niinistö and Xi Jinping signed the lease agreement for the pandas during the Chinese leader's visit to Finland in the spring of 2017. The creatures arrived in Finland the following January.
China has justified the leasing of pandas as a conservation effort. But at the same time, the country engages in so-called 'panda diplomacy' to boost its image. Recently, several countries — including the United States, Canada and Japan — have been returned or are in the process of repatriating giant pandas to China.
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