“Today marks the end of an era in the nation’s capital, as the beloved giant pandas at the Smithsonian National Zoo head back to China. Their departure could be a turning point after half a century of so-called ‘Panda Diplomacy.’ […] The pandas’ departure was one of the best-kept secrets here in Washington.” – CBS Mornings, 2023
When the U.S. government shut down in October 2025, America’s newest diplomatic gifts from China became invisible. The Smithsonian National Zoo, after burning through prior-year funds for eleven days, locked its gates on October 12th. The iconic panda cam – connecting millions worldwide to Bao Li and Qing Bao – went dark, deemed non-essential. Social media fell silent. Events like “Boo at the Zoo” were canceled. The zoo couldn’t even respond to press inquiries for this article.
Zoo officials assured the public that all animals would “continue to be fed and cared for” by essential staff. But the symbolic damage was done: America’s multimillion-dollar investment in panda diplomacy couldn’t guarantee the animals’ visibility during domestic political gridlock. The pandas themselves were fine – but their diplomatic function had evaporated overnight.
This wasn’t the first crisis for panda diplomacy. On November 8th, 2023, all pandas from the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Memphis Zoo returned to China as their lease agreements expired, leaving only four pandas in the United States with no lease renewal in sight. New pandas returned to San Diego in 2024, and D.C. received Bao Li and Qing Bao in early 2025 – just months before the shutdown would test whether these symbols of cooperation could survive American political dysfunction.
China has consistently emphasized conservation as the primary goal of panda partnerships. “The two sides have formed good cooperative relations, achieved fruitful results and played a positive role in protecting endangered species,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning in 2023. Yet the pattern of non-renewals during periods of heightened diplomatic tension reveals how vulnerable conservation programs become when tied to political symbolism
While ‘panda diplomacy’ has become shorthand for China’s strategic use of wildlife, the framework extends far beyond Beijing. This article introduces two previously unexamined terms and models – lemur diplomacy and chimpanzee diplomacy – to argue that conservation partnerships succeed when they prioritize institutional autonomy and scientific collaboration over political symbolism.
The Leverage Model: Panda Diplomacy
In 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited China on a diplomatic trip. As a gift, the two nations exchanged animals: a pair of musk oxen for a pair of giant pandas. These pandas went to live in the federally-funded Smithsonian National Zoo, where the public marveled at these instant animal celebrities.
However, this panda program would see an evolution from gifts to “panda loans,” which can cost upwards of one-million USD per panda pair to the host zoo each year.
Despite this seemingly stable program, the pandas were recalled multiple times. The first was in 2010, under the Obama administration. Two US-born panda cubs were sent back to China after a meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama occurred. Two days prior, China had warned Obama that they could take “corresponding action” if he chose to “undermine” the US-China relationship by meeting with the Dalai Lama. While Chinese officials cited the cubs’ age and breeding requirements as the reason for their return, the timing led many observers, such as the BBC, to view it as a diplomatic signal.
Yet not all panda partnerships follow this transactional pattern. Paul Baribault, former CEO of the San Diego Zoo, spent years rebuilding the panda relationship through a different approach. “It was not a negotiation,” Baribault explains. “I was very intentional not to make it about negotiation. It was about further building trust. We wanted to bring them over to actually continue their conservation.” This emphasis on scientific collaboration rather than political symbolism demonstrates that even within the panda model, conservation-focused relationships can succeed where purely diplomatic ones are fractured.
The Partnership Model: Lemur Diplomacy
While pandas set the template for animal diplomacy, other animals reveal fundamentally different approaches. The Duke Lemur Center (DLC) in North Carolina – home to the most diverse population of lemurs outside Madagascar – demonstrates what partnership-based conservation looks like in practice.
Lemurs first arrived in the Southeast in 1966, when biochemical lemur geneticist John Buettner-Janusch relocated his 90-lemur colony from Yale University to Duke’s Forest after accepting a position at the university. Buettner-Janusch and Duke biologist Peter Klopfer then co-founded the Duke Lemur Center. As lemurs became more critically endangered over time, the focus broadened to include conservation through international collaboration. In 2025, the DLC houses nearly 250 lemurs, and has housed over 4,000 lemurs since the initial colony arrived in the 60s.
This partnership in mutual conservation has resulted in a relationship based on the interests of the primates, rather than leverage – a scientific collaboration instead of a series of symbolic gestures. Yet, even this model faces political turbulence.
On October 12th, 2025, Malagasy president Andry Rajoelina was overthrown by an elite unit of the Madagascar army. While Madagascar has experienced this political change, the collaboration with the DLC currently proves resilient. Unlike the panda “loan” system, these institutions have built a mission centered around creating and preserving a permanent home for their animals in whichever country they reside. Heavy regulations on the transfer of lemurs between international zoos has contributed to strengthening this mission. Britt Keith, Colony Curator of the DLC, emphasizes that such success requires patience: “Takes time, takes trust, you’ve got to deliver on your promises.”
This collaboration produces tangible conservation outcomes while prioritizing local leadership. James Herrera, Director of Conservation at the DLC, emphasizes that “the local people have the most at stake in the land and the projects, they really have ownership and drive the project.” The work is community-driven: if communities identify needs like sustainable agriculture, the DLC provides training and tools. Programs span health, education, and environmental protection, developed in partnership with local mayors and authorities rather than imposed from outside.
Herrera is explicit about avoiding extractive practices: “We need to recognize our positionality […] What are we doing here in this country as a foreign entity?” Rather than extracting research value, the DLC builds capacity that remains in Madagascar. “The local stewards are in the best position for the long term sustainable conservation,” Herrera notes. “We need to recognize the immense value that what they’re doing has, and try to work with that, and not the other way around.”
Although pandas and lemurs represent contrasting diplomatic models, perhaps the most globally impactful animal diplomats have been the chimpanzees – not because they exemplified partnership from the start, but because they demonstrate how exploitative relationships can transform into genuine collaboration. In essence, chimps are evidence that conservation politics can evolve.
The Redemptive Model: Chimpanzee Diplomacy
The first chimpanzees were brought to the United States for extractive purposes. Chimpanzees’ use as research commodities escalated during the space race between the US and the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1975. However, as this research was being conducted, a singular event created a monumental shift in the global approach to conservation until present-day: Jane Goodall’s arrival in Gombe, Tanzania.
Dr. Goodall’s approach to studying Gombe’s chimpanzee population was one based in humanity. Instead of numbers, she gave the chimps individual names. She also was the first to discover the chimpanzees’ use of tools, which, previously, had been the key distinction in the scientific community between humans and apes: humans made tools, apes did not.
Goodall would go on to establish the Jane Goodall Institute, one of the largest global conservation networks, spanning Africa, Europe, and the United States. The Institute operates through decentralized partnerships with local communities and African institutions, prioritizing community-led conservation. This shift from pure research and extractive practices to humane treatment, behavioral analysis, as well as sanctuaries and protective treaties, allowed chimpanzees to become an international symbol of conservation and cooperation, demonstrating that animal diplomacy does not always have to be built on positive foundations to succeed.
“The countries themselves run the projects. We consult, we assist.” – Craig Stanford, former co-director of the USC Jane Goodall Center
This model creates self-sustaining partnerships. Stanford trained the first Ugandan PhD student to work with mountain gorillas, who “now trains students himself to do the gorilla work that he did long ago.” Stanford emphasizes that true conservation requires recognizing sovereignty: “Ultimately, these animals are the natural heritage of those countries. So they’re going to live or die based on whether the governments of those countries are really interested enough to protect them.”
In other words, redemption is possible in animal diplomacy, but is only sustainable when governance is also invested in their survival.
Testing the Models: Crisis Response
The real test of these models came in 2025, when simultaneous crises revealed their different strengths. The 2025 U.S. government shutdown and Madagascar’s October coup tested both models simultaneously. While federal pandas faced institutional paralysis, Duke’s lemur programs continued operating without disruption, Herrera confirmed. This demonstrated how partnership-based frameworks withstand crises that collapse leverage-based ones. The contrast suggests that partnerships focused on conservation – like Baribault’s San Diego model—prove more resilient than those primarily serving diplomatic functions. The question is whether China will embrace this approach or continue treating pandas as political leverage.
Conservation as Diplomacy’s Future?
With all these considerations in mind, could conservation heal international relations? In the words of Paul Baribault: “At the bottom line, when it comes to science and good commitments to discovery, scientists are universally the same. They’re searching for answers, transcending political boundaries and cultural differences. [It’s] about understanding, collaboration, and protecting a species that belongs to the world.”
Conservation could be the basis of treaties, peace, and more – and examples like Baribault’s San Diego model, the Jane Goodall Institute’s global influence, and Duke’s lemur partnerships prove it’s possible. The framework exists: institutional autonomy, scientific collaboration, and local ownership create resilience that political symbolism cannot. The question isn’t whether conservation can heal relations, but whether governments will choose to cede control to the scientists and communities who have already shown it works. As the 2025 crises demonstrated, decentralized care doesn’t just survive political failure – it transcends it entirely.