For decades, American zoos have raised tens of millions of dollars from donors and sent the money to China for the right to host and display pandas. Under U.S. law, those funds were required to be spent protecting pandas in the wild.

几十年来，美国动物园筹集数千万美元的捐款，把钱送到中国，以获得大熊猫的托管和展示权。根据美国法律，这些资金必须用于保护野生大熊猫。

But the Chinese government instead spent millions on apartment buildings, roads, computers, museums and other expenses, records show. For years, China refused even to account for millions more.

但记录显示，中国政府将数以百万计的美元用于公寓楼、道路、电脑、博物馆和其他开支。多年来，中国甚至拒绝说明更多数以百万计美元的支出情况。

Regulators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the payments, have for two decades raised concerns about this with American zoo administrators and Chinese officials alike. The U.S. government, on three occasions, froze payments to China over incomplete record keeping, documents show.

20年来，负责监督这笔款项的监管机构美国鱼类和野生动物管理局一直在向美国动物园管理人员和中国官员就此提出担忧。文件显示，美国政府曾三次因记录保存不完整而冻结对中国的付款。

Zoos, too, have known that the money was not always going toward conservation. But they worried that if Fish and Wildlife cut off the money altogether, China could demand the return of its bears. Zoos count on pandas for visitors, merchandise sales and media attention.

动物园也知道，这些钱并不总是用于保护动物。但他们担心，如果管理局完全切断这笔钱，中国可能会要求归还熊猫，而动物园依靠熊猫来吸引游客、销售商品和吸引媒体关注。

Ultimately, the regulators allowed the money to keep flowing and agreed not to check the spending in China so thoroughly, according to records and former officials.

根据记录和前官员的说法，最终，监管机构允许资金继续流动，并同意不再对中国的支出进行彻底检查。

“There was always pushing back and forth about how the U.S. shouldn’t ask anything,” said Kenneth Stansell, a former Fish and Wildlife official who traveled to China throughout the 2000s to discuss pandas. He said his Chinese counterparts argued that “it shouldn’t be of any concern to the U.S. government.”

前管理局官员肯尼斯·斯坦塞尔说，“关于美国不应该提出任何要求的问题，人们一直在反复争论。”斯坦塞尔在2000年代曾经前往中国讨论大熊猫问题。他说，他的中国对等官员认为，“美国政府不应该对此有任何担忧。”

None of this has been revealed to the public.

这一切都没有向公众透露过。

Where Did The Money Go?

钱都到哪里去了？

Zoos in the United States pay about $1 million a year to get pairs of pandas from China, an arrangement that regulators allow under a provision of the Endangered Species Act. Animal-rights groups have sued over similar payments for elephants, rhinos and tigers, saying that regulators were distorting the spirit of the law.

为从中国获取成对的大熊猫，美国的动物园每年支付大约100万美元，这是监管机构根据《濒危物种法》的一项规定所允许的安排。动物权利组织曾就大象、犀牛和老虎的类似付款问题提起诉讼，称监管机构扭曲了法律精神。

Pandas have so far escaped such scrutiny.

大熊猫到目前为止还没有受到这样的监管审查。

Panda rentals have been touted as a major conservation success. But a New York Times investigation found that what the program has done best is breed more pandas for zoos. And the conservation money at the heart of the program has been spent in ways that zoos do not reveal when fund-raising.

大熊猫租赁项目被誉为保护大熊猫的重大成功。但《纽约时报》的一项调查发现，该项目的最大作用是为动物园繁殖更多的熊猫。作为该项目核心的保护资金的使用方式，动物园在筹集资金时不会透露。

The Times used two decades of financial reports, internal correspondence, photos and archival records to track more than $86 million from American zoos to a pair of organizations run by the Chinese government. Zoos elsewhere in the world have contributed tens of millions of dollars more. In wildlife conservation, that is a huge sum, far larger than what zoos have spent in overseas donations for any other species.

时报利用20年的财务报告、内部通信、照片和档案记录，追踪了从美国动物园流向中国政府管理的两个组织的8600多万美元。世界上其他地方的动物园也捐出了数千万美元。在野生动物保护领域，这是一笔巨款，远远超过了动物园在海外为其他任何物种所做的捐赠。

Zoos approve which projects get financed and then list them in annual reports to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Those records show that funds were allocated to build apartment buildings far from nature reserves. China also bought computers and satellite television for local government offices and built at least three museums with the money, according to the records.

哪些项目得到资助由动物园批准，然后动物园会在提交给管理局的年度报告中列出这些项目。相关记录显示，资金被分配到远离自然保护区的地方建造公寓楼。记录显示，中国还为地方政府办公室购买了电脑和卫星电视，并用这笔钱建造了至少三座博物馆。

And American money helped transform a panda breeding center in western China into a bustling attraction that, according to an architect’s plans, may soon welcome as many visitors as Disneyland.

美国的资金帮助中国西部的一个熊猫繁殖中心变成了一个熙熙攘攘的景点，根据一位建筑师的计划，它可能很快就会迎来像迪斯尼乐园一样多的游客。

Those payments represent only what was documented. Zoo administrators have at times struggled to persuade their Chinese partners to disclose the spending.

这些只是有记录可查的付款。动物园管理人员有时很难说服他们的中国合作伙伴披露这些支出。

“You had to take their word,” said David Towne, who until 2016 was the director of a foundation representing American zoos with pandas. “China felt it was not our business — that we got the pandas, and we shouldn’t tell them how to spend the money.”

“你必须相信他们的话，”戴维·汤恩说。2016年之前，他一直是一家代表美国动物园饲养大熊猫的基金会的负责人。“中国觉得这不关我们的事——我们得到了熊猫，我们不应该告诉他们如何花钱。”

Early agreements gave zoos the right to verify funding on the ground. But contracts signed recently by the National Zoo in Washington and by the San Diego Zoo make no mention of checking how money is spent.

早期的协议赋予动物园实地核查资金的权利。但是，华盛顿国家动物园和圣地亚哥动物园最近签署的合同没有提到对资金使用情况的检查。

10月，圣地亚哥动物园的纪念品。美国的动物园每年支付约100万美元从中国获取一对熊猫。

American zoo administrators have acknowledged, in letters to regulators, that the numbers do not always add up.

美国动物园管理人员在给监管机构的信中承认，有时候账目是对不上的。

Zoos in Europe, which also rent pandas, reached a similar conclusion. At Edinburgh Zoo, where two pandas lived until last year, an administrator said in 2021 that its money couldn’t be tracked because “the funds from all zoos are pooled,” according to meeting minutes. As a result, the Scottish zoo could not identify any “specific works, projects or outcomes” that it had funded.

同样租借了大熊猫的欧洲动物园也得出了类似的结论。在爱丁堡动物园，有两只大熊猫一直生活到去年，会议纪要显示，2021年，该动物园的一名管理人员表示，动物园的资金无法追踪，因为“所有动物园的资金都集中在一起”。因此，这家苏格兰动物园无法确定其资助的任何“具体工作、项目或成果”。

This has been a problem for decades. When Fish and Wildlife officials asked Memphis Zoo in 2007 to identify which Chinese areas would benefit from $875,000 allocated for panda monitoring, the zoo had no answer. It wrote in an annual report that its Chinese partner had provided “NO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.”

这个问题已经存在了几十年。2007年，鱼类和野生动物管理局官员要求孟菲斯动物园明确哪些中国地区将从用于熊猫监测的87.5万美元拨款中受益，动物园没有给出答案。该动物园在一份年度报告中写道，其中国合作伙伴“没有提供其他信息”。

In a statement to The Times, the zoo acknowledged problems.

在给时报的一份声明中，该动物园承认存在问题。

“Memphis Zoo was not able to control the funding that was sent to China as, once it was there, it was no longer in the hands of Memphis Zoo officials,” the statement said. “And there was not always information provided regarding the funding once in China.”

“孟菲斯动物园无法控制汇往中国的资金，因为这笔资金一旦到了中国，就不再由孟菲斯动物园官员掌握，”声明说。“而且，资金一旦进入中国，并不总是提供有关信息。”

Melissa Songer, a conservation biologist at the National Zoo, which recently welcomed two new pandas, said that China had put donor money to good use. “They have done so much in terms of setting aside protection and doing all the right things — stopping logging, investing,” she said. “And part of that money is coming from zoos around the world.”

美国国家动物园最近迎来了两只新的大熊猫，动物园的保护生物学家梅丽莎·松厄尔说，中国很好地利用了捐赠资金。“他们在保护上做了很多正确的事——停止伐木，投入资金，”她说。“其中一部分资金来自世界各地的动物园。”

10月，一架载有两只来自中国的大熊猫的航班抵达弗吉尼亚州杜勒斯机场。这两只名叫宝力和青宝的熊猫将被送往美国国家动物园。

The National Zoo did not answer written questions about funding. The San Diego Zoo declined to comment. China’s national forestry bureau and its zoo association, which together oversee panda exchanges, also did not respond to questions.

国家动物园没有回答有关资金的书面问题。圣地亚哥动物园拒绝置评。中国国家林业和草原局以及中国动物园协会也没有回应记者的提问。这两家机构共同监管大熊猫交流。

China has indeed expanded its network of nature reserves, and some American money was allocated for patrol trucks, small ranger stations, equipment and other items needed to protect land, records show. Mr. Stansell, the former regulator, said that, on visits to China, he did see some conservation projects. And Mr. Towne, the former panda foundation director, said that, even in the absence of hard evidence, he saw signs of progress, including more professional staff working in the reserves.

记录显示，中国确实扩大了自然保护区网络，一些美国资金被分配用于巡逻车、小型护林站、设备和其他保护土地所需的物品。前监管人员斯坦塞尔说，在访问中国时，他确实看到了一些保护项目。前熊猫基金会主任汤恩说，即使没有确凿的证据，他还是看到了进步的迹象，包括保护区工作的专业人员越来越多。

But pandas live on only a portion of that land, and their habitat is shrinking. China has built roads and developed tourism in and around nature reserves, piercing the natural habitat and leaving pandas isolated in ever-smaller populations, Chinese and American scientists have concluded.

但大熊猫仅生活在其中的一部分土地上，而且它们的栖息地正在缩小。中美两国科学家得出结论，中国在自然保护区内外修路、发展旅游业，破坏了大熊猫的自然栖息地，导致大熊猫的种群数量越来越少。

Their report estimated that wild pandas have less territory to roam than they did in the 1980s, before the influx of funds from foreign zoos.

他们的报告估计，与20世纪80年代外国动物园资金涌入之前相比，野生大熊猫的活动范围更小了。

“It’s in everybody’s interest to portray these conservation efforts as great successes,” said Kimberly Terrell, who traveled to China while working as director of conservation at Memphis Zoo.

“把这些保护工作描绘成巨大成功符合所有人的利益，”金伯利·特雷尔说，她在孟菲斯动物园担任保护主任期间曾前往中国。

“There was never any real evaluation of the programs,” she added. “In some cases, it was really hard to see the connection between those programs and giant panda conservation.”

“从来没有对这些项目进行过真正的评估，”她还说。“在某些情况下，很难看出这些项目与大熊猫保护之间的联系。”

(Dr. Terrell, now a scientist at Tulane University in Louisiana, settled an unrelated gender discrimination lawsuit against the zoo in 2018.)

（特雷尔现在是路易斯安那州杜兰大学的一名科学家，在2018年与孟菲斯动物园达成了一项与大熊猫保护无关的性别歧视诉讼和解。）

The Fish and Wildlife Service said it takes federal law “very seriously” and requires “sufficiently detailed financial accounting data” from zoos with pandas.

美国鱼类和野生动物管理局表示，该局“非常重视”联邦法律，并要求有大熊猫的动物园提供“足够详细的财务会计数据”。

Dan Ashe, the agency’s former director, called the funding disagreement between China and the United States “a technical matter.” Mr. Ashe said that he had approved new reporting standards to maintain a program that he felt significantly benefited conservation. “We had to come up with a solution,” he said.

前局长丹·阿什称中国和美国之间的资金分歧是“技术问题”。他说他批准过新的报告标准，以维持一个他认为对保护环境有显著好处的项目。“我们必须想出解决方案，”他说。

Mr. Ashe now heads the industry association for American zoos.

阿什现在是美国动物园行业协会的负责人。

A Secret Compromise

秘密妥协

In 2010, Mr. Ashe led a delegation of senior American wildlife officials to China for a high-stakes meeting.

2010年，阿什率领一个由美国野生动物管理高级官员组成的代表团前往中国，参加一场事关重大的会议。

The panda-rental program was on the verge of falling apart, records show. If he could not reach an agreement with his Chinese counterparts, pandas in Atlanta, Memphis, San Diego, and Washington might have to return to China.

记录显示，当时熊猫租赁计划濒临崩溃。如果他不能与中国同行达成协议，亚特兰大、孟菲斯、圣地亚哥和华盛顿的大熊猫可能不得不返回中国。

The program’s finances had been rocky from the start.

该项目的财务状况从一开始就很不稳定。

Early money had gone to what Zoo Atlanta called a “drastic expansion and construction” of a panda breeding center in Chengdu, western China. Millions more went toward infrastructure in and around nature reserves, including roads, buildings, and water hookups — money that regulators questioned. One National Zoo project, a mixed-use building with apartments and office space, was 30 miles from a nature reserve.

早期的资金被用于亚特兰大动物园所称的“大规模扩建和建设”中国西部成都的一个熊猫繁殖中心。还有数以百万计的美元用于自然保护区内部及周边的基础设施建设，包括道路、建筑和供水系统——监管机构对这些资金提出了质疑。国家动物园的一个项目是一栋带公寓和办公空间的多功能建筑，距离自然保护区约50公里。

来自史密森学会档案的一张罕见照片，显示2000年国家动物园的工作人员正在参观成都大熊猫繁育研究基地的建筑工地。在美国动物园的帮助下，该基地成为一个重要旅游景点。

“While we understand the need for establishment of an infrastructure in China, we feel strongly that construction of facilities alone will not accomplish the goal of enhancing the survival of pandas in the wild,” regulators at the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote to the National Zoo.

“虽然我们理解在中国建立基础设施的必要性，但我们强烈认为，仅靠设施建设无法实现提高野生大熊猫存活率的目标，”美国鱼类和野生动物管理局的监管人员在给国家动物园的信中写道。

The zoo industry pushed back. “Conservation activities in the wild cannot occur if the infrastructure does not exist,” the industry group currently headed by Mr. Ashe, now called the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, responded.

动物园行业进行了反击。“如果基础设施不存在，野生动物保护活动就无法进行，”目前由阿什领导、现在名为“动物园和水族馆协会”的行业组织回应。

The Fish and Wildlife Service ultimately approved most of the funds.

管理局最终批准了大部分资金。

Then, in 2003, regulators froze money to China because of a lack of documentation, records show. But they soon gave in to Chinese demands for less detailed reporting.

记录显示，后来在2003年，由于缺乏文件，监管机构冻结了流向中国的资金。但他们很快就屈从了中国提出的减少报告细节的要求。

“The service thought that was a reasonable way to move forward to keep the program going,” Mr. Stansell, the former agency official, said.

“管理局认为这是一种合理的方式，可以继续推进这个项目，”前管理局官员斯坦塞尔说。

Back and forth it went for years, with the Chinese groups sometimes withholding information or spending money on projects with only loose connections to conservation, and American regulators periodically freezing funds.

这种情况反复了好几年，中方有时会隐瞒信息，或者把钱花在与环保没有多少直接联系的项目上，美国监管机构则会时不时冻结资金。

Zoo Atlanta submitted a funding proposal for a 27,000-square-foot building, 48 sets of office furniture and 50 miles of road, along with computers and a copy machine, for “nature reserve infrastructure projects” in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu, records show. Zoo Atlanta declined to comment, saying it did not have information on old projects.

亚特兰大动物园提交了一份资金提案，为中国西北部甘肃省的“自然保护区基础设施项目”提供约2500平米的建筑，48套办公家具和约80公里的道路，以及电脑和一台复印机。亚特兰大动物园拒绝对此发表评论，称其没有关于旧项目的信息。

So, when Fish and Wildlife officials landed in Beijing in 2010, years of money issues were coming to a head. The Chinese groups had stopped reporting their spending altogether, and the American regulators had frozen $12 million in payments over two years, according to internal National Zoo documents.

因此，当管理局官员们于2010年抵达北京时，多年的资金问题已经到了必须解决的地步。根据国家动物园的内部文件显示，中方已经完全停止上报他们的开支，而美国监管机构在两年内冻结了1200万美元。

The zoo’s employees acknowledged that they couldn’t verify spending and fretted about losing their pandas. “The goal is to find a compromise,” they wrote.

动物园员工承认，他们无法核实支出，并担心失去熊猫。他们写道：“我们的目标是找到一个折中方案。”

“This is a good opportunity to ‘update’ the process,” another document read.

另一份文件写道：“这是一个‘更新’程序的好机会。”

The zoos disclosed none of this publicly. “All of that money goes back into conservation research in China,” Don Moore, a National Zoo administrator, told ABC News that year, even as the zoo’s payments were frozen.

动物园没有披露这些信息。国家动物园管理者唐·摩尔那一年告诉ABC新闻：“所有这些钱都用于中国的保护研究，”尽管动物园的付款遭到了冻结。

9月，中国西南部都江堰的熊猫保护研究中心。华盛顿国家动物园的一位生物保护学家说，中国把捐赠者的钱用在了刀刃上。

Ultimately, the zoos got the compromise they wanted. Fish and Wildlife regulators agreed to reduce oversight. Going forward, zoos could approve Chinese funding proposals directly, rather than sending them to the agency for review, Mr. Ashe said in an interview.

最终，动物园得到了他们想要的妥协。鱼类和野生动物管理局同意减少监督。阿什在接受采访时说，今后，动物园可以直接批准中国的资助提案，而不是送交该机构审查。

“What it did was put the accountability in the right place,” he said. The zoos are “accountable to demonstrate that they are reporting significant and meritorious conservation projects, not the Chinese.”

他说：“这样做的结果就是把问责放在一个合理的位置上。”动物园，“而不是中国人，有责任表明它们正在报告重要和有价值的保护项目”。

Panda Disneyland

熊猫迪士尼乐园

Even with more lax reporting requirements, problems persisted.

虽然报告的要求更加宽松，但问题依然存在。

Three of the zoos paid for office equipment for local government forestry bureaus.

其中三个动物园为当地政府林草局支付了办公设备费用。

Other money went to captive pandas, rather than to pandas in the wild. Memphis Zoo earmarked hundreds of thousands of dollars for animal enclosures, bamboo and veterinary facilities at Shanghai Zoo.

其他资金则用于圈养大熊猫，而不是野生大熊猫。孟菲斯动物园为上海动物园的动物围栏、竹子和兽医设施拨款了数十万美元。

In 2017, a Chinese government group failed to show how the San Diego Zoo’s money had been spent, records show. In a letter to regulators, the zoo blamed a change in leadership at China’s national forestry bureau.

记录显示，2017年，一个中国政府组织未能说明圣地亚哥动物园的资金使用情况。在致监管机构的一封信中，动物园将责任归咎于中国国家林草局领导层的变动。

Animal-rights groups and scholars say that the heart of the problem is lax enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

动物权益组织和学者表示，问题的核心在于《濒危物种法》执行不力。

“It’s really alarming that they’re approving these things in the first place,” said Delcianna Winders, an animal-law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. “And then there’s no follow-up to track that the money is actually going to what it’s supposed to be going to.”

“他们批准这些项目本身就令人震惊，”佛蒙特州法律与研究生院动物法教授德尔西安娜·温德斯说。“然后也没有后续跟进，以确保这些钱真的用在了该用的地方”。

The Fish and Wildlife Service said that the donations were “an important tool to support conservation of endangered and threatened species.”

鱼类和野生动物管理局表示，捐款是“支持保护濒危和受威胁物种的重要工具”。

American zoos continue to advertise that they are saving a species in the wild. But in western China, where the wild panda ecosystem is more fragmented than ever, panda tourism is booming.

美国动物园继续宣传他们正在拯救一个野生物种。而在中国西部，野生熊猫生态系统比以往任何时候都更加支离破碎，熊猫旅游业却在蓬勃发展。

The Chengdu breeding center, which American zoos helped renovate two decades ago, now has 11 million visitors a year and its own IMAX theater. It is a zoo in its own right, one that controls a third of the world’s pandas. The campus is so large that tourists take shuttle buses from one end to the next.

成都大熊猫繁育研究基地是美国的动物园在二十年前帮助翻新的，现在每年接待1100万游客，并拥有自己的IMAX影院。它本身就是一个动物园，控制着世界上三分之一的大熊猫。园区非常大，游客乘坐小巴士从一端穿梭到另一端。

成都大熊猫繁育研究基地的熊猫塔。该基地本身就是一个动物园，控制着世界上三分之一的大熊猫。

On a visit in August, visitors thronged through the gate at 7 a.m. to catch a glimpse of the pandas before they retreated to air-conditioned enclosures.

在8月的一次参观中，游客们早上7点就簇拥着通过大门，以便在大熊猫返回装有空调的圈舍前一睹它们的芳容。

The center is planning a satellite facility, its second. When complete, the complex expects to host 20 million annual visitors, more than Disneyland, according to an architecture firm’s plan.

该基地正在规划第二座卫星设施。根据一家建筑公司的规划，该综合设施建成后，预计每年将接待2000万游客，超过迪士尼乐园。

The development is part of a larger Chengdu tourism push that includes new resorts and an international panda festival. The Chinese state news agency Xinhua said the goal was to “fully tap the brand value, cultural value and economic value of the giant panda.”

该开发项目是成都旅游业一项大规模开发的一部分，包括新建度假村和举办国际熊猫节。中国官方通讯社新华社称，其目标是“充分挖掘大熊猫的品牌价值、文化价值和经济价值”。