Beijing Zoo first baby pandas since 2003

[Chlidonias]

Beijing Zoo sees first baby pandas since 2003

July 5 (Xinhaunet) -- The family of animals at Beijing Zoo grew on Friday with the arrival of a pair of panda babies at about 10 am.

They were the first pandas to be born at the zoo since 2003, according to Beijing Times.

One of the twins is still at the zoo, being cared for by its parents, while the other was sent to Ya'an in Sichuan province where its parents, Gugu and Yinghua, were born.

Pandas typically care for one twin and abandon the other, necessitating the move.

"The 109-gram baby panda sent to us, which does not yet have a name, is probably a male but its gender cannot be definitively worked out by us until it is around three years old," a worker with the Ya'an-based China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda told local media.

The baby panda in Sichuan is being fed with milk from its grandmother that the center had collected and frozen. Baby pandas need breast milk to improve their immunity during the first three days of life.

The baby panda will eventually be sent back to the zoo, once it has developed.

The mother panda and her baby in Beijing are receiving care from experts in the delivery room at the zoo and will not meet tourists for the time being, according to a worker at the zoo.

 

[Chlidonias]

FOXNews.com - Panda in Chinese zoo accidentally crushes its new cub to death after abandoning its twin

A panda at the Beijing Zoo accidentally crushed her new cub to death after abandoning its twin, Chinese state media said Tuesday.

The two female cubs were born Friday, but the mother nursed only one of them, the zoo's deputy president told the China Daily newspaper.

"Mother pandas are always like that," Zhang Jinguo said. "Twins are rare, and all mothers take only the first cub as their own."

The panda mom, named Yinghua, then accidentally crushed the other cub to death in a corner of her pen early Saturday when she going to nurse it.

"Pandas have poor eyesight. Yinghua apparently didn't see the cub," Zhang said.

Before the accident, zoo staff had been told to leave the panda and her cub alone unless help was needed.

Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered species. Some 1,600 pandas live in the wild, while more than 300 pandas are raised in captivity in China.

Zhang said it was the first such death of a panda cub at Beijing Zoo, which has seven giant pandas.

Tuesday's report said the abandoned cub has been taken to a research and breeding center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where it was put in an incubator in intensive care. Researchers there were quoted saying the cub was in good health.

 

[Chlidonias]

FOXNews.com - Panda in Chinese zoo accidentally crushes its new cub to death after abandoning its twin

A panda at the Beijing Zoo accidentally crushed her new cub to death after abandoning its twin, Chinese state media said Tuesday.

The two female cubs were born Friday, but the mother nursed only one of them, the zoo's deputy president told the China Daily newspaper.

"Mother pandas are always like that," Zhang Jinguo said. "Twins are rare, and all mothers take only the first cub as their own."

The panda mom, named Yinghua, then accidentally crushed the other cub to death in a corner of her pen early Saturday when she going to nurse it.

"Pandas have poor eyesight. Yinghua apparently didn't see the cub," Zhang said.

Before the accident, zoo staff had been told to leave the panda and her cub alone unless help was needed.

Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered species. Some 1,600 pandas live in the wild, while more than 300 pandas are raised in captivity in China.

Zhang said it was the first such death of a panda cub at Beijing Zoo, which has seven giant pandas.

Tuesday's report said the abandoned cub has been taken to a research and breeding center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where it was put in an incubator in intensive care. Researchers there were quoted saying the cub was in good health.