Finnish zoo forced to send pandas back to China due to ‘rising care costs’

A Finnish zoo is getting ready to go back two loaned massive pandas to China more than 8 years in advance than deliberate, mentioning the excessive expenses in their care and a drop in traveler numbers.

The private Ähtäri Zoo, positioned 205 miles north of Helsinki, introduced that the pandas, Lumi (this means that “snow”) and Pyry (because of this “snow fall”), will be sent lower back to China later this yr.

The pandas had been firstly loaned to Finland as part of a fifteen-12 months settlement with China to commemorate Finland’s 100th 12 months of independence in 2017.

Since the pandas arrived in January 2018, the zoo has confronted economic difficulties that have worsened due to a decline in traffic resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and the effect of the Russia-Ukraine struggle.

Visitor numbers fell extensively as fewer vacationers visited the region, main to a sharp decline in revenue for the zoo.