Ya Ya, a female giant panda who has been at the Memphis Zoo for 20 years, left the the U.S. state of Tennessee on April 26 local time and will arrive Shanghai, China on April 27. 

To her fans around the world, it is not a moment too soon for Ya Ya's long-awaited trip home.

"The people of China welcome Ya Ya back home, much awaited. Come back, eat well, drink well and nourish the skin," one social media user posted on Weibo.  

Ya Ya will spend a month in quarantine in Shanghai before taking up residence in Beijing Zoo, according to the latest announcement from the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens.

A skinny panda suffering from parasite infection

In 2003, Ya Ya, a female panda born in Beijing Zoo in August 2000, was flown to Memphis with Le Le, a male panda from Shanghai Zoo, as part of a cooperation program between China and the U.S. 

Ya Ya has long suffered from a skin disease due to parasite infections, which "occasionally make her hair look thin and patchy."

Since the beginning of 2022, when heart-wrenching videos of a gaunt looking Ya Ya first came under the spotlight, her safety and health have been on the minds of many Chinese social media users. Some expressed concerns that the giant panda may have suffered abuse or didn't have enough fresh bamboo during her stay.

In December 2022, the Memphis Zoo announced they would return Le Le and Ya Ya to China, concluding 20 years of cooperative research on time. However, concerns were reignited following Le Le's sudden death from heart disease on February 1, 2023.

Despite speculation over whether the pandas were mistreated, the Memphis Zoo has repeatedly said their condition was stable considering their age.

The deputy director of the Memphis Zoo, Lauren Kasaky, said the zoo prepared Ya Ya different kinds of bamboo, with supplementary food including sugar cane, grapes and cookies. The amount of food changed with the season.

Normally she eats a piece of sugar cane every morning. Ya Ya's favorite food is grapes, but she was only given 100-gram portions, Hannah Crossfield, caretaker of the Memphis Zoo said.

"After all she is a giant panda and her main food needs to be bamboo to keep her healthy. In terms of bamboo preference, Ya Ya likes the leafy variety," she explained.  

The Memphis Zoo records the time, type and weight of food provided daily, as well as various pieces of health information, and all the data is summarized into monthly health reports and sent back to China, a veterinarian at the Beijing Zoo said.

Preparation before returning home 

On April 14, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that a Chinese expert and two employees at the Beijing Zoo were working with the Memphis Zoo for the preparation of Ya Ya's relocation. Upon arrival at the U.S. zoo, veterinarians from the Beijing Zoo assessed Ya Ya's health and finalized preparations for her trip home.

"In order to look after Ya Ya better after returning to China, we had conducted interactions and learned some training gestures and training commands from our counterparts from the Memphis Zoo," said the Beijing Zoo personnel.

"We gained a comprehensive understanding of the Memphis Zoo's feeding details and feeding environment, familiarized ourselves with Ya Ya's feeding methods, feed composition, behavioral training and daily physical examinations, and also interacted with her to some degree," veterinarian of the Beijing Zoo told Xinhua.

"When pandas live in the wild, their life expectancy is around 20 years. If we look after them in zoos, maybe the life expectancy will be 25 years or even longer. So Ya-Ya is now 23 years old. It's like a human being in her 80s," Zhao Zhonghua, the World Animal Protection's Beijing representative, told CGTN.

'Come to see the pandas in the nature'

As Ya Ya-related topics have trended for months on social media in China, animal protection campaigns have also spread. 

How should humans treat and protect giant pandas?

"Animals are sentient beings like human beings. Pandas can also feel nervous. They need to adjust to new places, new weather and a new time zone. So the experts wanted to look after her well, to do a medical check-up, and ensure Ya Ya has proper food and doesn't feel nervous," Zhao said.

Over the past decade, techniques such as artificial breeding of giant pandas have developed rapidly, and the global captive population of giant pandas now stands at 673, nearly double the number of a decade ago, he added.

Now there are more than 2,000 giant pandas living in the wild. China has a giant panda-protecting national park, and we invite our foreign friends to come to the national park to see the pandas in the nature, Zhao said.