Giant panda Yong Ming Photo: VCG

 Chinese and Japanese netizens sent sincere and best wishes to Yong Ming, 30, the oldest giant panda in Japan, as it would reportedly be sent back to the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, to enjoy old age in its hometown in February, 2023.

Yong Ming, which has lived in the Adventure World in Shirahama town, Wakayama prefecture, Japan, since 1994, will be sent back to China next February together with two of its daughters, a female twin named Ying Bin and Tao Bin, the Adventure World announced Thursday.

Yong Ming is the backbone of the giant panda family in the Adventure World and it keeps setting records for the oldest giant panda to reproduce naturally, the park said.

Since coming to the Adventure World in 1994, Yong Ming has reproduced a total of 16 children. It made great contribution to the fruitful achievements of joint study between China and Japan on the reproduction of giant panda in the past 28 years, the park noted.

Ying Bin and Tao Bin, the twin sisters born in December 2014, reached the age of sexual maturity. They will be arranged to mate and reproduce in the Chengdu breeding center, according to the park.

The park will conduct health review for the three pandas for one month from mid-January and will allow visitors to watch them separated by glass. Specific arrangement for their returning journey will be disclosed later, according to media reports.

Yong Ming was born in the Beijing Zoo in 1992.

All the children of Yong Ming have the word "bin" in their names. After returning to China, these offspring have thrived and opened up branches and leaves. As of November 2019, there are 23 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Giant panda families with more than 40 descendants like this are rare in China, according to media reports.

Now Yong Ming is equivalent to the advanced age of human beings close to 90 years old.

A hashtag related to Yong Ming and its daughters' return to their home country also became a trend on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo. Chinese netizens flooded to the platform to welcome them. Some netizens also expressed appreciation to Japanese keepers as they had taken good care of Yong Ming so that it can live such a long life.

Japanese netizens have also expressed their unwillingness to lose Yong Ming as well as their greetings and appreciations to Yong Ming on the Adventure World's account on Twitter.

"Please make sure the plane it will take has enough space and there will be enough bamboos for it during the journey. If the park does not have enough money, we can raise through crowdfunding,'' a Japanese netizen commented.

Global Times