San Diego, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Gate of San Diego Zoo
2. Sign reading "San Diego Zoo"
3. Various of visitors watching panda
4. Panda
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Christina Simmons, worker, San Diego Zoo (starting with shot 4/ending with shot 6):
"Not only is she the first female to successfully give birth in the U.S., but she's also produced six cubs for us."
6. Panda

FILE: Kunming City, Yunnan Province, southwest China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
7. Various of pandas eating moon cake
8. Various of pandas fighting for moon cake

San Diego, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Swaigood, researcher, Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo (starting with shot 8):
"Panda conservation is continuing. We always thought that the panda was a good return on investment.There's a lot of money spent on pandas and mostly on the preservation of their habitat of course. But what this study showed is that there's good returns on that investment."

FILE: Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, southwest China - Sept 28, 2018 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
10. Various of giant panda cubs

San Diego, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Christina Simmons, worker, San Diego Zoo (ending with shot 12):
"Most of the cubs that were being born to pandas in China were dying. And we set out to correct that, to learn more about giant panda reproduction, to learn more about maternal care and to determine how we could reverse the survivability issue."

Yabuli Town, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, northeast China - Oct 28, 2018(CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
12. Various of panda playing in snow

Loaning pandas to foreign countries has benefited everyone involved as well as the once endangered species.

San Diego is one of only a handful of zoos in the world that have Chinese pandas to display. Bai Yun, a female giant panda loaned from China has been sheltered at the zoo since Sept 10, 1996. She is known for being the first panda to successfully give birth in the U.S.

"Not only is she the first female to successfully give birth in the U.S., but she's also produced six cubs for us," said Christina Simmons, a worker at the San Diego Zoo.

A joint China-U.S. study showed that China earned 709 million U.S. dollars from the international panda loans and 1.9 billion U.S. dollars from improving ecosystems around China's panda reserves in 2010. Subtracting 255 million U.S. dollars a year which used for improve conservation, the net profit reached 2.3 billion U.S. dollars, in another word, the return over the investment hit 923 percent.

And all the profits were used to improve the habitats of pandas or strengthen the conservation.

"Panda conservation is continuing. We always thought that the panda was a good return on investment.There's a lot of money spent on pandas and mostly on the preservation of their habitat of course. But what this study showed is that there's good returns on that investment," said Ron Swaigood, an researcher at the Institute for Conservation Research of the San Diego Zoo.

Thanks to the investment on the conservation measures, the quantity of panda is growing. The latest official count in 2014 showing the number of the species rose 17 percent in ten years. There are total of 1,864 pandas living in the wild in China. And 67 nature reserves were established to protect about two thirds of those wild pandas.

The investment also were spent on the research of improving the survivability of the species.

"Most of the cubs that were being born to pandas in China were dying. And we set out to correct that, to learn more about giant panda reproduction, to learn more about maternal care and to determine how we could reverse the survivability issue," said Christina.