Shin Shin

Shin Shin (Chinese name Zhen Zhen, studbook number 1022) is a female giant panda born on July 21, 2008 at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. She is the offspring of captive-bred pandas Bing Bing (studbook number 1019) and Hua Hua (studbook number 1020), both of whom remained residents of the Chengdu Research Base following her birth. After her first year of development under the care of Chengdu’s panda husbandry team, she was formally transferred to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, Japan on July 21, 2009, as part of a long-term international collaborative conservation agreement between Chinese and Japanese wildlife authorities.

As a designated participant in the coordinated global giant panda captive breeding program administered by the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, Shin Shin contributes to core research goals focused on improving captive breeding success rates, refining species-appropriate husbandry protocols, and studying panda physiological and behavioral traits. She exhibits typical adult giant panda activity patterns, devoting approximately 10 to 16 hours per day to foraging for bamboo and related supplementary feeds, with the remainder of her time allocated to resting, grooming, and occasional environmental enrichment interactions.

Housed at one of Japan’s most visited urban zoological facilities, Shin Shin is a high-profile cultural and conservation ambassador, drawing an estimated 3 to 4 million annual visitors to Ueno Zoo. Her public presence drives widespread public education about giant panda ecology, the threats facing wild panda populations in their native Minshan and Qinling mountain habitats, and the importance of cross-border collaborative conservation work. These collective international efforts, supported by individuals in the captive panda population including Shin Shin, contributed directly to the 2016 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List adjustment of the giant panda’s status from Endangered to Vulnerable, marking a landmark milestone in species recovery work.