2011 after collapsing in his exhibit. Bao Bao (1978–2012) was one of the first two giant pandas in Germany and became – for a time – the oldest known panda in zoos. He was together with the female panda Tjen Tjen (who died in 1984) given to West Germany by China in 1980. Between 1991 and 1993 Bao Bao was loaned to London Zoo. In 1995, back in his Berlin home, another female named Yan Yan was sent on loan from China in an attempt to mate Bao Bao. In spite of several artificial insemination experiments there were no offspring. Yan Yan died in 2007. In summer 2017, giant pandas returned to Berlin, when Jiao Quing and Meng Meng arrived on breeding loan from China. In September 2019, Meng Meng gave birth to twin panda cubs. Fatou the female gorilla was born on 13 April 1957. She came to the zoo at an estimated age of two. In 1974 she gave birth to the first gorilla to be raised in Berlin, Dufte. Since the death of Colo in January 2017, she is the oldest living gorilla in captivity of the world (now together with American gorilla Trudy). Incidents In 2008, Claudia Hämmerling, a Green Party MP, accused the zoo director, Bernhard Blaszkiewitz (also the director of Tierpark Berlin), of selling hundred of animals for slaughter, in some cases to breeders in China for potency-boosting drugs. The same year, Blaszkiewitz admitted to breaking the necks of several feral domestic housecat kittens found at the zoo. In 2009, a woman was mauled by polar bears after jumping into their exhibit. She was rushed to the hospital and survived. See also List of zoos in Germany Zoo flak tower, built in 1941, demolished in 1947 References External links Zoological Garden Zoological Garden Zoological Garden Zoos in Germany Zoos established in 1844 1844 establishments in Prussia