Panda News from around the world
Another success for the Wolong semi wild team, Zhang Ka an 11 year old wild born Giant Panda has given birth to twins. The second cub was a girl and weighed 137.4g at birth. The second cub was removed because Giant Panda mothers can only raise one cub at a time and the second is usually left to die.
She was mated with Bai Yang on May 26th 2011.
Mother and cubs doing well.
On the 4th August 2011, Qing He at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, gave birth to a healthy male Panda cub.
Qi Zhen a 12 year old Giant Panda gave birth to twins on the 4th of August 2011.
The first was born at 8:07 am local time who is a female weighing 152g and the second a male born at 10:26 am with a birth weight of 122g.
These are the first twins born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding this year.
Both mum and siblings are doing well.
Well done Qi Zhen, and all the staff at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
It appears we are well and truly in to panda birth season.
I look forward to bringing more updates of panda births.
At 5:07 am local time Mao Mao the giant panda who was used for the basis of the 2008 Olympic Mascot Jing Jing gave birth to a 170g Giant Panda Cub.
Mao Mao gave birth to twins in 2008 and had difficulty in nursing the cubs, this time she has shown good parenting skills.
With this birth the total number of Giant Pandas at the Chengdu Panda Research Centre to 98.
Well done to Mao Mao and all the staff at Chengdu Panda Research Centre.
Jin Zhu, One of the pandas I had the pleasure of looking after for a few days back in 2008 has given birth to a cub in the semi wild centre at Wolong.
Jin Zhu was born in 1996 and moved to Kobe Japan in 2000, but returned in 2002 when Jin Zhu was showing signs of being both a male and female. The keepers continued to care for her and in 2007 gave birth to Jin Xin.
It's reported than mum and cub are doing well.
Panda House the blog of Chengdu's Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding have released some new photos of Mei Lan, the Giant Panda who was born in Atlanta USA and now lives in Chengdu. There's alot of photos here, but head over to the reference link to see even more.
The site is in Chinese, just enjoy the photos.
She has became one beautiful young panda lady.
Li Li a nineteen year old Giant Panda has given birth to a healthy baby panda girl, on the 25th of July 2011.
This is the first panda of the year for Chungdu.
Mother and Baby doing well
The San Diego Zoo has released a new image of a thermal scan of Bai Yun.
"Two indistinct heat structures can be seen, one on either side of her midline, toward the right side of the picture. The arrow-shaped red structure in the middle is her bladder. At this point we can only say these heat signatures are suggestive of two implantation sites."
"We’ll be doing another scan this week, and we’ll continue to watch these heat signatures through the month of July, when we may see them become more distinct, which would indicate growing cubs."
A San Diego zoo security guard who was doing his rounds in the early morning of Monday 11th July smelt smoke and found on investigation that the shop close to the Panda Exhibit was on fire.
Fire Fighters were called and the fire was out in about 15 minutes. Investigators stayed through the night examining the reason behind the fire. It is believed that the fire was set deliberately, the exact cause has not been released at this time.
The panda keepers checked on the pandas and they were going about their usual routines and were not effected by the fire.
Some images of Su Lin's New Male Cub.
I've received some new photos of my adopted son 'An Di'.
He's almost 11 months old and is getting quite big now.
Xi Xi or Qian Qian has given birth to twins at the wild training base in Sichuan, China.
Xi Xi was born in 1998, and is a 'hero' mother with these cubs bringing the total to 6.
The first cub was born at 6:55 in the morning and the second was born at 8:04. The staff removed a female cub, as Giant Panda mothers do not usually bring up 2 cubs in the wild and she would of likely of been left to die.