Mexican zookeeper reflects on caring for Latin America's last panda

MEXICO CITY (AP) — After a decade of caring for camels, lions, lynxes and lemurs, Joel Frías joined the team handling the Chapultepec Zoo’s star attraction: the giant pandas.

It was 2000, and Mexico City’s zoo, nestled in its massive forested urban oasis, had been the first outside China to successfully breed giant pandas.

Xin Xin, the last panda born from that program, was 10 years old then. Now she’s 35, elderly by captive panda standards, and the last giant panda in Latin America.

Every morning, Frías arrives early to quietly check on her breathing before preparing a breakfast of biscuits, cooked rice, carrots, and crushed apples.

“Even if it’s raining … even if it’s really cold, I’d rather be checking the animals than be at a desk,” said the 60-year-old zookeeper, who wears small panda buttons pinned to his vest.

Giant pandas like Xin Xin have an average life expectancy in the wild of 15 years. In captivity, they’ve lived as long as 38.

The pandas that once were at risk of extinction have rebounded thanks to conservation programs and now number some 2,300, with about 500 of those in zoos around the world.

Mexico’s program started in 1975, when China gave it Pe Pe and Ying Ying, a pair that yielded seven cubs, four of whom reached adulthood. One of those original offspring was Xin Xin’s mother Tohui.

Xin Xin has outlived her parents, aunts and uncles, but she never had cubs, so Mexico’s panda run could end with her.

The Mexican government has not said what it will do when Xin Xin dies. China now charges $1 million a year to loan pandas for 10 to 15 years.

When Frías joined the team caring for the pandas, he started by sitting with Xin Xin and speaking to her so she would grow accustomed to his voice. He made sure to wear the same fragrance each day so that she would recognize his scent.

Eventually, he gained her trust to the point that he could get close enough to touch her.

Now, after 25 years caring for her, Frías can easily figure out what she wants.

“When she’s hungry and nervous, she starts with the stereotypical (behavior) of getting up and walking from one side to the other,” he said. “That means she wants out or that she’s hungry.” In addition to the fruits and veggies she gets twice a day, she eats about 28 pounds (13 kilograms) of bamboo branches.

Xin Xin sleeps about 15 hours a day, so for several years now, Frías has led her through daily exercises of no more than 10 minutes at a time, where she will sit, open her mouth, extend her paw and lie down. The routine allows her veterinarians to regularly check her heart, breathing and take blood samples.

Zoo Director Alberto Olascoaga said that despite Xin Xin’s advanced age, “she’s completely in good health.” Her teeth and joints aren’t in great shape, but that’s normal for an elderly panda.

On a typical day, Xin Xin’s flock of fans mill about outside her leafy enclosure oohing and ahhing at the fluffy bear munching bamboo on the other side of the glass.

After hearing of Xin Xin’s most recent birthday in July, Jazmín Montoya, a 23-year-old lawyer from the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, convinced her mother and two sisters to drive to Mexico City to visit the panda.

“We’re not ready yet” to say goodbye, Montoya said. It will be “a great loss for the nation.”

Frías isn’t ready for that day either.

Watching her outside the enclosure, the zookeeper grew emotional recalling how when she was young Xin Xin would do somersaults and run around when they released her into her enclosure in the mornings.

“She has already given us 35 years well lived. In fact, physically she’s doing better than I am,” he said, collecting himself. But her departure will also close a chapter for the zookeeper. “If she goes, I will too.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Visitors watch Xin Xin, the 35-year-old Mexican-born panda, as she eats bamboo stalks in her enclosure at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Xin Xin, a 35-year-old Mexican-born panda, walks through her enclosure at Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Zookeeper Joel Frias Manríquez pulls a wheelbarrow filled with bamboo branches for Xin Xin, a 35-year-old Mexican-born panda, at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A visitor looks at a mural illustrating the family tree of Xin Xin, a 35-year-old Mexican-born panda, at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Xin Xin, a 35-year-old Mexican-born panda, chews on bamboo stalks in her enclosure at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents executed multiple searches in Minnesota on Tuesday, seizing records and other evidence in an ongoing fraud investigation by the Trump administration of publicly funded social programs for children, authorities said.

Few details were released, though armed agents were seen at childcare centers in the Minneapolis area. KSTP-TV said one crew even had a battering ram.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who has been on the defensive amid Trump administration claims that he hasn't done enough to root out fraud, welcomed the raids. The state child welfare agency said it shared key information with law enforcement to "hold bad actors accountable."

“We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it,” Walz said.

The searches were being conducted at daycares, businesses and some residences, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

Tensions between Minnesota officials and the federal government were high during an extraordinary immigration crackdown that led to the deaths of two people before Operation Metro Surge was eased in February.

Before that crackdown, the government had brought fraud charges against dozens of people, many of them Somali Americans, who were accused of fleecing a federal program that was meant to provide food to children. The investigation began during the Biden administration. More than 60 people have been convicted.

Various state and federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, participated in searches Tuesday. Officers from Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were removing boxes at some sites.

“The American people deserve to know how their taxpayer money was abused. ... No stone will be left unturned,” DHS said.

Jason Steck, an attorney who represents childcare centers, said the names of targeted businesses that were shared with him show they're operated by Somali immigrants. They were not his clients.

“A few childcare centers, a few autism centers, a few healthcare agencies of some type," Steck said, adding that it appeared to be a "particular sweep for fraud.”

The executive director of Child Care Aware of Minnesota, a nonprofit that serves childhood educators, said the publicity will be unflattering.

“The majority are in business to do good business. You’re going to come across individuals who try to capitalize on systems that are broken and need to be fixed," Candace Yates said.

Right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video in December that caught the attention of the Trump administration. He alleged that members of Minnesota's Somali community were running fake child care centers so they could collect federal subsidies, fueling suspicions on top of the food aid scandal. The claims were disproven by inspectors.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has used dehumanizing rhetoric, calling Somali immigrants “garbage” and “low IQ.”

In February, Vice President JD Vance said the government would temporarily halt $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns. Minnesota sued in response, warning it may have to cut healthcare for low-income families, but a judge on April 6 declined to grant a restraining order.

Walz told Congress in March that he wanted to work with the federal government in fraud investigations, but that the immigration surge had made it more difficult.

“The people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale,” he said at the time.

Durkin Richer contributed from Washington. AP reporters Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Corey Williams and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.

Federal and state officials load evidence into a vehicle as they execute a search warrant at The Original Childcare Center in south Minneapolis, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (Ben Hovland/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

A federal police officer stands outside the Metro Learning Center in Minneapolis as federal agents execute a search warrant, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (Ben Hovland/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

State and federal agents remove boxes of evidence collected from Metro Learning Center on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

A federal officer stands outside the Mako Child Care Center in Minneapolis, Minn., Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (Anthony Soufflé/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

FBI agents walk outside the Mako Child Care Center in Minneapolis, Minn. on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (Anthony Soufflé/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

FILE - Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on oversight of fraud and misuse of Federal funds in Minnesota, March 4, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)