Pandas are a vulnerable species. American zoos are allowed to fly them in from China and display them to tourists on one condition: They have to prove to federal regulators that they are helping pandas in the wild.
For the most part, they do this by paying fees to two Chinese government organizations, which are supposed to spend the money on panda conservation.
My colleagues and I spent months researching this arrangement. We collected around 10,000 pages of records, including financial reports that zoos provided to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on about $86 million that was sent to China.
What stood out was how often zoos had no idea where the money was going. When records did exist, a portion of money went toward patrol vehicles and other items needed to protect land. But we found many instances in which American zoos signed off on projects to pay for the likes of apartment buildings, computers and museums in China, or agreed to cover costs at Chinese zoos.
This has persisted for decades, but American zoos haven’t disclosed it publicly. Regulators at the Fish and Wildlife Service quietly froze payments to China at least three times, citing incomplete record-keeping.
But instead of demanding better accounting, they agreed to relax their oversight.
Is it legal for zoos to pay for animals like this?
Under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service allows zoos, circuses and hunting farms to transport or even kill at-risk species if they pledge money for conservation and meet other criteria.
Animal-rights groups have sued over some of these payments, saying that regulators are distorting the spirit of the law. They call it “pay to play.”
Zoos contend that the money they have sent to China has led to better habitat protection. They say they also contribute to conservation through research, breeding and education.
“The bigger question,” said Carney Anne Nasser, an animal-law expert who has worked on the protection of tigers and other big cats, is, “are we actually enhancing the propagation and survival of the species in the wild with these donations?”
What’s the problem?
There is more money at stake with pandas than with any other species. Zoos pay about $1 million a year to get pairs of the animals from China.
Regulators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are supposed to track how that money is spent. The agency has at times asked for more information, and it has sent officials to China to investigate spending.
But on a 2010 trip to Beijing, we found, its regulators also agreed to relax their oversight, removing a crucial check on conservation payments. That laxer approach still applies to pandas in American zoos today.
Critics say that the agency is too cozy with zoos. The regulator who led the talks in Beijing now heads the American zoo industry association.
“They shouldn’t weaken a policy simply because it’s hard for the Chinese officials to implement the policy,” said D.J. Schubert, a wildlife biologist with the Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group in Washington. “If the Chinese government is not able to meet those standards, then there shouldn’t be a giant panda trade.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement that payments made under the Endangered Species Act were “an important tool to support conservation” and that it takes the law seriously.
But Memphis Zoo, which had pandas until 2023, acknowledged issues in a statement to The Times, saying it “was not able to control the funding that was sent to China.”
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