Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., is losing its latest panda diplomat. On Tuesday, Bei Bei will move to China.
The giant panda will fly out in a crate in his own private FedEx plane on a non-stop flight to Chengdu, China.
Millions of Americans have watched Bei Bei grow up at the National Zoo either in person or online via the popular panda cam. Some visitors and viewers of Bei Bei watched him eat his first shoot of bamboo and take his first tumble in the grass. He was born in 2015, and that same year, Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan, first ladies of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, named him.