The 2025 Pasadena Tournament of Roses theme this year is “Best Day Ever.”
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance aims to deliver on that and then some. The nonprofit will participate in Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade for the fourth consecutive year on New Year’s Day 2025.
Last January, SDZWA received a top prize for “Most Beautiful Entry” for its float celebrating the 107-year history of the San Diego Zoo, “It Began With a Roar.”
Its previous float, themed “Celebrating 50 Years of Conservation,” also received an award for most outstanding use of animation.
This New Year’s float will spotlight the zoo’s giant pandas and “panda diplomacy,” with designs of Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, the pair who made their public debut at the San Diego Zoo on Aug. 8, a day designated “California Panda Day” by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Five-year-old male Yun Chuan and four-year-old female Xin Bao are the first pandas to enter the United States in 21 years.
“Giant pandas have an extraordinary ability to unite us,” said the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s president and chief executive officer, Paul A. Baribault, in a release.
“The symbolic presence of Yun Chuan and Xin Bao at the Rose Parade, a storied New Year’s tradition, celebrates the power of nature and conservation as a unifying force.”
