Sad farewell as Malaysia-born panda heads to China

Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia’s first locally-born giant panda headed to its homeland China on Tuesday, with officials bidding a sad goodbye to the female cub.

Two-year-old Nuan Nuan, whose name means “warmth”, was born in Malaysia’s national zoo in August 2015 a year after her parents Feng Yi and Fu Wa arrived in the country on a 10-year loan from China.

In the wild, giant pandas can only be found in China’s mountainous central regions where their favourite food, bamboo, grows in abundance.

But as part of its policy of “panda diplomacy”, Beijing loans the animals to countries worldwide as a goodwill gesture.

Its agreement with Malaysia provides that cubs born in captivity must be handed back to China at the age of two.

Nuan Nuan was placed inside a container Tuesday and lifted into a Malaysia Airlines freighter for a four and a half hour flight to the Chinese city of Chengdu -- home to a special research base for giant panda breeding.