A crowd of individuals, some visibly moved, gathered at a rain-soaked amusement park in South Korea to bid farewell to a beloved giant panda before her departure to China on Wednesday.
Fu Bao has been a prominent attraction at the Everland theme park near Seoul since her birth in 2020 to pandas Ai Bao and Le Bao, who arrived from China in 2016 as part of a 15-year lease program.
China sends pandas abroad as a gesture of goodwill but retains ownership over the animals and their offspring.
Decades of conservation efforts in the wild and research in captivity have saved the species from extinction, boosting its population from under 1,000 to over 1,800 in the wild and in captivity.
Despite the rain, many panda enthusiasts in South Korea attended a farewell event at Everland for Fu Bao, who was scheduled to fly to China later in the day.
As a truck carrying Fu Bao slowly made its way through the rain to a plaza, numerous visitors, clad in raincoats or holding umbrellas, waved flags, shouted farewell messages, and snapped photos with their phones. Some openly wept or wiped away tears.
The truck bore a large image of Fu Bao and the message "It was a miracle that we met you.
Thank you, Fu Bao."
However, she was not publicly displayed on Wednesday. The park's last public showing of her was on March 3
"Even if 10 or 100 years pass, you will always be our baby panda," zookeeper Kang Cheol-won said in a speech during the ceremony.
"Dear everyone, Fu Bao is now departing. Please remember Fu Bao for a long time... and please try not to cry too much!"
Fu Bao's mother, Ai Bao, gave birth last year to female twin cubs, the first panda twins born in South Korea.