It’s moving day for four of the Toronto Zoo’s most popular residents.
Da Mao and Er Shun, as well as their offspring Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue, left the zoo in a convoy bound for Calgary at around 8:30 a.m..
According to Toronto Zoo spokesperson Jennifer Tracey, the pandas were loaded into custom crates which their keepers have been trying to familiarize them with over the last few months.
The crates were then placed in the back of two FedEx trucks that will take them to a special charter plane for the three-and-a-half hour flight to Calgary.
“It is all about positive reinforcement. On the first day the crate arrived it was put on the south outdoor exhibit and immediately the cubs started to climb on it, the mom was sniffing it and they were going inside to eat their bamboo so they have become very comfortable with it,” Tracey said of the crates. “There has been a lot of work preparing them for this journey and hopefully all goes well.”
The elder giant pandas first arrived in Toronto in 2013 as part of a 10-year loan agreement with China.
Their cubs were then born two years later. They were the first giant pandas born in Canada.
As part of the agreement with China, Da Mao and Er Shun will spend five years at the Calgary Zoo.
Their cubs, meanwhile, will head back to China after about a year-and-a-half in Calgary.
“It is with mixed emotions but we knew that this day was coming,” Tracey told CP24. “Today we bid them goodbye and we wish them nothing but the best in Calgary. Hopefully they will have success with cubs (there) as well.”
The pandas are being transported to Calgary with the help of FedEx, which has now helped ship 17 pandas to destinations around the world.
Speaking with CP24 at the Toronto Zoo on Friday morning, FedEx spokesperson James Anderson said that the pandas will be getting first class treatment for the duration of their trip.
“I wish I could travel the way these pandas are travelling today. They are going to be travelling aboard two special trucks that will be nice and acclimatized for them and then when they arrive at our hub they will be aboard their own special charter, a B757. A three-and-a-half hour flight from Toronto to Calgary, first class treatment all the way. As I said before, I wish I could travel that way myself.”
While in Calgary, the pandas will live in a $14.5-million facility that was built specifically for them.
Sunday was the last day that members of the public were able to visit the pandas at the Toronto Zoo.
With files from The Canadian Press
