Yu Hin

Yu Hin (Chinese name: 雄滨) is a male giant panda born on December 17, 2001 at Adventure World in Wakayama, Japan, as part of a joint Sino-Japanese giant panda breeding and research program. His father is Ei Mei and mother is Mei Mei, both wild-born giant pandas originating from Sichuan Province, China, who were transferred to the Japanese facility to support captive breeding efforts aimed at expanding the species’ genetic diversity. Assigned global giant panda studbook number 541, Yu Hin is formally registered in the international captive panda tracking system, which is used by conservation managers to coordinate breeding plans and maintain the genetic health of the global captive population.

On his first birthday, December 17, 2002, Yu Hin was transferred to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan, China, where he has resided continuously in the decades since. As a participant in the base’s formal captive breeding program, his genetic lineage, derived from wild-born Sichuan pandas, makes a valuable contribution to the diversity of the global captive panda gene pool, supporting the core goal of ex-situ conservation to build a stable, self-sustaining captive population that can complement in-situ protection efforts in the species’ native mountain habitats in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

Now an older adult male, Yu Hin exhibits typical giant panda activity patterns, spending the majority of his daily waking hours foraging on bamboo, a behavior regularly highlighted in the Chengdu Base’s visitor education programming. He serves as a tangible representation of decades of successful international collaborative conservation work for the vulnerable giant panda species, helping to educate the millions of annual visitors to the Chengdu Base on the importance of both captive breeding and wild habitat protection for the long-term survival of pandas. His life history also illustrates the structured, cross-border coordination that underpins modern giant panda conservation management, with individual transfers and breeding pairings guided by centralized population data to maximize conservation impact.