SINGAPORE – Mr Tie Boon Ping arrived at River Wonders at 8am on Dec 13, the eighth successive day he had turned up at the wildlife park in Mandai.  

The 57-year-old operations director was there to catch one last glimpse of Le Le, the first panda cub born in Singapore.

From Dec 14, Le Le will no longer be in his exhibit as he begins a 4½-week quarantine before he boards a plane for China on Jan 16, 2024.

Visitors started trickling in as early as 8am, two hours before River Wonders opened its doors.

“I woke up at 4.30am before my alarm at 5.15am. I am very excited to see Le Le today,” Mr Tie told The Straits Times. “I can’t bear to see him go but, deep down, I feel happy that he is going back to his parents’ home town.”

Mr Tie, who took a day’s leave to ensure he would not miss the occasion, first saw the panda cub in January 2022 and has since visited him almost every week.

“He is so adorable… it feels therapeutic to see him,” said Mr Tie, who has visited seven other zoos and wildlife parks in 2023, in countries like South Korea and China, to see giant pandas. 

Housewife Kelly Lim, 39, turned up with her two sons, aged two and five, to say goodbye to Le Le, born to dad Kai Kai and mum Jia Jia. The trio had already made two trips to River Wonders since the school holidays started.

“We have grown attached to Le Le, especially as he was born in the same year as my younger son,” said Ms Lim, who first visited Le Le in December 2021. She added that she could relate to how tired Jia Jia would have felt taking care of her newborn.

“It’s really sad to see him go... it’s really the last time (to see him here),” she said.

For Ms Nicole Tan, 32, it was her first and last time seeing Le Le n the flesh.

While she wished the panda cub could stay in Singapore, the tutor, who donned a black giant panda T-shirt from River Wonders, said: “I believe he will be well fed and well looked after, but we will miss him.

“I don’t think we will ever get enough of him, and now that he is going away, photos and videos are all we will have of him.”

Another long-time fan, Ms Choo Jia Le, compared Le Le’s impending departure to the loss of a family member.

“It’s very sad and hard to say goodbye to him, knowing that I can no longer see him in Singapore,” said the civil servant, who is in her early 30s.

Ms Choo has been visiting Le Le weekly since January 2022, and also during public holidays. She described it as a pastime, and a way to unwind from work. 

Her favourite Le Le moments included seeing him tumble down the slopes in the exhibit, and running to the den at meal time.

“He has been a ray of hope through the darkest moments of the pandemic… This will definitely not be the last time I’ll see him,” said Ms Choo, who plans to visit China in 2024 to see the panda cub again.

Around 9.40am at the Pavilion Capital Giant Panda Forest, the door between Le Le’s den and the exhibit opened. The star of the day stepped out gingerly to the clicks of cameras.

Le Le then made his way to the centre of the exhibit, where a banner depicting a Singapore Airlines (SIA) boarding pass with his photo was on display.

He then plopped himself down in a comfortable sitting position and started chomping away on bamboo, before exploring the exhibit.

Besides the SIA banner, there were decorative paper planes and boxes wrapped like suitcases, which Le Le eventually opened and found treats like bamboo.

At 11am, there was a long queue snaking from the entrance of the air-conditioned premises of the exhibit to the area outside.

Inside the Pavilion Capital Giant Panda Forest, visitors – who were told they had only two to three minutes to take photos of Le Le – fished out mobile phones to snap the panda cub, and take selfies with him from afar.

About 1,000 people turned up to bid Le Le farewell on Dec 13, said Mandai Wildlife Group.

Speaking to the media, group chief executive Mike Barclay said: “Le Le has been a wonderful ambassador for his species, helping to raise awareness regarding the threats that giant pandas face in the wild, and allowing us to highlight the excellent work being undertaken in China to conserve his species.”

He recalled the day when Mandai’s veterinarian team said Jia Jia was pregnant, just five days before she gave birth on Aug 14, 2021.

Since then, 1.8 million visitors from Singapore and around the world have visited Le Le, he said.

“We continue to be grateful that we have been entrusted to care for giant pandas and to be part of China’s global network of panda conservation programmes,” said Mr Barclay.

Ms Qin Wen, cultural counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Singapore, thanked the Republic for the love and care in looking after Le Le and the giant panda family.

She added: “I think that after Le Le goes to China, as far as I know, there will be another month-long quarantine for him. So if all goes well, he will meet the public around Chinese New Year.”

Mandai Wildlife Group deputy chief executive and chief life sciences officer Cheng Wen-Haur said: “We have watched our giant panda cub grow into the confident, inquisitive and independent bear that he is today.

“It is so heartening to see people from all walks of life coming together for Le Le, and cheering him on in the next chapter of his life.” 

Le Le spent his last 15 minutes in the exhibit snoozing and switching positions in between naps.

Minutes after 2pm, he returned to his den as visitors waved goodbye.

Le Le’s impending departure is bittersweet for panda keeper Trisha Tay, who witnessed his birth and growth into a playful two-year-old. She is one of the staff members who will accompany the cub to China to help with his transition.

“The past two years seem to have passed in the blink of an eye,” said the 40-year-old assistant curator at Mandai Wildlife Group, adding that she was filled with pride watching Le Le hit all his milestones.

“If Le Le could understand me, I would tell him to grow up healthy, be happy, and hopefully he remembers all of us and the good times in Singapore,” she said.

Le Le was born to giant pandas Jia Jia and Kai Kai on Aug 14, 2021. He is the first and only cub born to the pair since they arrived in Singapore in 2012 on loan from China. It took them seven attempts to conceive the cub.

Under the terms of Chinese panda loan agreements, cubs born on foreign soil are generally returned to China when they turn two.

China loans the animals to other countries to promote goodwill, an initiative that has become popularly known as “panda diplomacy”.

Jia Jia and Kai Kai’s stay in Singapore was extended in 2022 for five more years until 2027, under an agreement signed by the China Wildlife Conservation Association and Mandai Wildlife Group.

When asked for her final farewell message to Le Le, Ms Tan, the tutor, said: “Even though he is going to China, he will always hold a place in our hearts. He could be somewhere else in the world but we will never forget him.”