OH MY GOD!!!
The National Zoo in Washington, DC has FINALLY been gifted with a baby giant panda. Mei Xiang, the female giant panda there gave birth to a cub at 3:41 a.m. on 9 July.
I wouldn’t have known if Donna hadn’t emailed to let me know, and if the subject line of her email hadn’t said “BABY PANDA!”
From what I know, panda babies usually aren’t born till mid August onwards (well, this is based on San Diego Zoo’s Mama Bai Yun’s two babies so far, both born around that time). So Mei Xiang’s baby cub is a REALLY special one.
I went to the National Zoo’s giant panda site and was greeted with the news. Here’s an extract from the page:
Full story here:
Giant Pandas – National Zoo FONZ
The National Zoo was the first American zoo to have giant pandas – a pair presented in the early 1970s to commemorate President Nixon’s visit to China. At a dinner sometime during the visit, Nixon’s wife was sitting with Premier Chou En Lai. On the table was a cigarette tin with a picture of a giant panda. Mrs Nixon remarked how much she liked the black and white animal, and Premier Chou then arranged for a pair to be presented to her.
The two National Zoo pandas, Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling, soon became the darlings of Washington, DC. Their lives were closely followed, especially their mating attempts, the resulting pregnancies and births, and national mourning when none of the cubs survived. Ling Ling died in the early 1990s, and Hsing Hsing in 1999. A year to the day of his death, a group of representatives from the Zoo were in Wolong Centre, China, to take delivery of two new giant pandas, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang.
After their arrival, there were a few attempts at mating, and pseudo pregnancies, but now, more than 30 years since their first pair of giant pandas, the National Zoo finally has its own first giant panda cub.
And Mei Xiang is now Mama Mei Xiang.
