In June 2023 I finally made it to Zoo Madrid to tick off the final pandas in Europe – I have now visited all 9* of the European panda zoos! I can’t believe it! This was a solo trip, and actually my second solo trip to Spain as I’ve been to Barcelona before. I planned one day at the zoo on my trip and found that this was enough to see everything, including spending several hours at the panda enclosure. Zoo Madrid is one of the oldest zoos in the world, and has also had pandas since the 1970’s. Breeding has been very successful, with several cubs born to the current pair on loan to the zoo – at the time of my visit (and the time of writing) 3 of the cubs are still living there, giving the zoo a total of 5 pandas. Luckily I saw them all on my trip!
The zoo opens at 11AM and I got there shortly after opening – it was mid-week in early June, so there weren’t a huge number of visitors or tourists, and were quite a number of school groups. While they could be quite loud and meant there were a lot of people at the panda viewing spots, the groups never really stayed long, so there were still plenty of opportunities to get the best viewing spot. The zoo stays open later, until 8PM in the Summer, I didn’t stay that late as most of the animals seemed to be headed to their indoor spaces with less to see from around 6PM, so I left between 6 and 7PM and it seemed that most of the other visitors had also left by that time as well. It was a pretty hot day as well, so I took a break for lunch in the mid-afternoon around the time the pandas were all inside as well, so I didn’t miss too much of the action.
This family of pandas have lived at Zoo Madrid since 2007, and in 2018 a 5-year extension was granted. Since then there hasn’t been anything in the media about the pandas returning to China, so it could be that the pandas are due to return soon, although this may have been delayed due to the pandemic and the delayed return of a number of other pandas.
*This 9 includes Edinburgh Zoo who had pandas until December 2023, and does not include the pandas at Moscow Zoo.
