A zoo in Finland has given up two giant pandas because they have become too expensive for the facility to maintain amid declining visitors.
Lumi the Panda playing in the snow The private Ahtari Zoo in central Finland said on its Facebook page the female panda Lumi, Finnish for ‘snow’, and the male panda Pyry, meaning ‘snowfall’, will return to China eight years earlier than planned. The panda pair were China’s gift to mark the Nordic nation’s 100 years of independence in 2017 and were supposed to be on loan until 2033.
But the upkeep of Lumi and Pyry, including a preservation fee to China, cost the zoo some 1.5 million euros annually. Pyry the Panda at the private Ahtari Zoo The bamboo the giant pandas eat was flown in all the way from the Netherlands. The Chinese embassy in Helsinki noted to Finnish media that Beijing had tried to help Ahtari to solve its financial difficulties, including by urging Chinese companies operating in Finland to make donations to the zoo and supporting its debt arrangements.
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