Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, said the animals “bring us together ... when the bears arrived. By previous agreement, the zoo’s most recent giant panda residents ...

The world’s hope for giant pandas rests on the young bear’s shoulders ... collaboration with Chinese colleagues has made an irrefutable impact. Together, we have grown the panda population and learned ...

Conservation, however, is keeping the two sides working together ... is to help the bears return to the wild and survive, and a larger captive-bred panda population is the foundation for that ...