Four giant pandas return from Japan to China

Four giant pandas in the western Japanese prefecture of Wakayama departed for China on Saturday, with hundreds of their fans bidding farewell.

The giant pandas, Rauhin and her three daughters, left Adventure World amusement park in the town of Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China’s Sichuan Province.

A farewell ceremony was held to wish the pandas a happy life back in China and to reflect on their time at the zoo. Adventure World began a breeding cooperation program with the Chinese panda research base in 1994.Kansai University professor emeritus Katsuhiro Miyamoto noted that over the past 31 years, the giant pandas have generated an economic impact of more than 125 billion yen for Wakayama Prefecture.