TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Two giant pandas arrive in Indonesia
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Hu Chun, one of two giant pandas as they arrive at the Sukarno-Hatta airport in Tangerang, on the outskirt of Jakarta on September 28, 2017. Two giant pandas from China arrived in Indonesia on September 28, as part of the two countries' diplomacy to lend the animals to Indonesia. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
T
wo giant pandas, Cai Tao and Hu Chun, arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, after a five-hour flight from Chengdu, China, on Thursday morning.
The seven-year-old pandas received a warm welcome from Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya and the Chinese Embassy’s chargé d'affaires, Sun Weide.
Siti said she hoped the "dating couple," on loan to Indonesia for the next 10 years, would breed soon.
"The pandas are now seven years old meaning that they are already teenagers. They live on average for up to 30 years," Siti said at a press conference at the Garuda Indonesia cargo terminal on Thursday. "We hope next year they can get 'married' and have kids."
Siti said if a panda baby is born it would stay at the Taman Safari zoo, Cisarua, Bogor, West Java, for two to three years before being returned to China.
They must be returned to preserve the gene pool, Siti said.
Meanwhile, Sun said he believed the pandas, deemed a national treasure in China, would live happily in Indonesia.
"I hope to hear the good news soon that the panda gives birth here," Sun said.
The breeding loan was initiated after a conservation agreement between China and Indonesia that involved PT Taman Safari Indonesia and the China Wildlife Conservation Association in Guiyang in August last year.
The pandas will remain in quarantine for a month before being unveiled to the public late next month or early November.
