Panda enthusiasts young and old braved the snow on Saturday to bid farewell to Tai Shan, the National Zoo’s beloved giant panda, who is set to return to China on Thursday.
The celebration, which was stopped at 1 p.m. due to the inclement weather, featured dancers, drummers, and people dressed in giant panda costumes. Kids — as well as adults — clutched plastic bags containing giant stuffed panda bears, and one Jeep Renegade in the zoo parking lot even featured the Virginia license plate “Ta1 Shan.”
There was also a booth where people could send farewell messages to the departing panda.
Meg Athey of Arlington said she wrote “Have a good trip” in Spanish. Athey is part of group on the photo-sharing website Flickr called “Pandas Unlimited.”
“I just loved him when he was a baby,” she said. “Pandas are just really sweet — they make me happy.”
Others in attendance were in a more melancholy mood.
“It’s very sad — very sad,” said Jennifer Russell of Springfield, who was with her daughter Brittany. Russell said she’s been making regular trips to see Tai Shan since he was born in 2005. The four-and-a-half year old panda is set to return to China on Thursday for breeding.
While the celebration was scheduled to run from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m., Mother Nature had other plans. Snow fell steadily throughout the morning, and the zoo was shut down at 1 p.m. Tai Shan still received a cake before the festivities finished up, a zoo spokeswoman said.
A winter storm warning was issued for much of the D.C. metro area Saturday as a gigantic storm system made its way across the southeast; it was expected to drop four to six inches of snow on the Washington region by Sunday morning. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issued a state of emergency for parts of the Commonwealth on Friday in anticipation of the storm. States of emergency were also declared in Arkansas and North Carolina. Even places like Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisiana were not spared from the storm.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
