We tracked $86 million in U.S. money that was supposed to go toward panda conservation in China.

We tracked $86 million in U.S. money that was supposed to go toward panda conservation in China.

A Times investigation found that zoos knew conservation money went toward apartment buildings and roads. But they wanted to keep displaying pandas, so nobody looked too closely.

In the 1990s, China began sending pandas to foreign zoos to be bred, in the hope that future generations could be released into the wild. It hasn’t gone as planned.

A motorcade through the capital revived “panda diplomacy” between Washington and Beijing for the first time in nearly a year.

The panda census methodology is widely seen as flawed, and China keeps the data shrouded in secrecy.