Overview
- Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo will send twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei back to China by the end of January 2026, leaving Japan without pandas for the first time since 1972.
- Adventure World in Wakayama is running a paid Panda Love Club where staff wear panda hats and visitors perform keeper tasks during a 90‑minute session.
- Participants pay about 8,000 yen to prepare meals, observe “pandas,” fill out reports, and even feed apple slices to a keeper inside a cage.
- The program went viral in December coverage as crowds queued for up to five hours at Ueno Zoo to see the twins before their departure.
- Adventure World returned four pandas in June 2025 after 31 years with the animals, and some outlets link the accelerated withdrawals to diplomatic strains, which officials have not confirmed.