WASHINGTON — When Bao Bao was born, in August 2013, the National Zoo’s not-yet-giant panda cub was the size of a stick of butter.
Laura Schmechel of Mount Vernon, Va., remembers watching on the zoo’s online Panda Cam, marveling at the tiny bear who was “always moving around and having fun.” Bao Bao seemed like a smaller version of her, the 14-year-old says.
One year later, Brandon Budd of Upper Marlboro, Md., joined in the birthday festivities at the zoo. “She got a cake,” remembers Brandon, now 11, “though she didn’t eat it that fast.”
Soon enough, she was climbing trees, rolling down hills and — like Laura and Brandon — “moving a lot.”
Next week, the playful bear whose Chinese name means “precious” or “treasure” will make her biggest move. On Tuesday, she will step inside a shipping crate and board the “Panda Express,” a FedEx plane that will fly her, a panda keeper, a veterinarian, and more than 55 pounds of bamboo and treats to the Chinese city of Chengdu.
She’s leaving behind her family, including younger brother Bei Bei, for a new home at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. Older brother Tai Shan has lived there since 2010.
Under an agreement with Chinese officials, all pandas born at the National Zoo move to China about the time they turn 4, shortly before they reach breeding age. Researchers at the panda center are trying to increase the number of pandas in the wild — which is about 1,800, all in China.
“This is the time that Bao Bao would be moving away from her mom in the wild,” panda keeper Nicole MacCorkle said Saturday at the National Zoo as hundreds of members of Friends of the National Zoo snapped photos, wrote farewell messages and said goodbye to the 203-pound panda.
“She’s ready to go on and look for a suitable mate and to have babies of her own in the next couple years,” MacCorkle said.
The crowd at included dozens of kids in panda hats or panda jackets.
In the enclosure behind them, Bao Bao ran down the hill, seeming to show off. Her reward: a “fruitsicle” made with a frozen pear, frozen apple juice and water.
There are no fruitsicles in China, only special “panda bread” and seemingly endless fields of gourmet bamboo. With her back against a tree, the panda faced the crowd, licked her treat and fell asleep. She was still clutching the frozen fruit.
