China Panda Reserve Celebrates First Birth of the Year

ABC's Zoe Magee reports from London:

Keepers at Southwest China’s Ya’an reserve celebrated the birth of a giant panda cub last Thursday. The male cub was born around 10 a.m. with a weight of 5.6 oz and a length of 6 inches.  Affectionately greeting her newborn, mom Zhuyun picked the cub up in her mouth and took it for a walk. Watching the scene unfold, workers breathed a sigh of relief as mother and cub remained unharmed.  Following Chinese tradition, the newborn cub will not be named until 100 days after its birth. It was conceived in March, when Zhuyun mated with a male named Lingling, and is Zhuyun’s second offspring. Her first cub, Minmin, is one of ten giant pandas sent to Shanghai this year for the World Expo.  The good news from Ya’an came after a tragedy at Beijing zoo. Earlier this month, Yinghua, a mother panda at the zoo, accidentally crushed her new cub to death. The cub was next to its mother when it cried for milk. Responding to the cries, Yinghua turned toward the sound and squashed the newborn with her giant body. Human intervention came too late. “Pandas have poor eyesight. Yinghua apparently didn’t see the cub,” Zhang Jinguo, deputy president of the Beijing zoo, told China Daily. Yinghua had given birth to twin female cubs. As pandas are accustomed to abandoning one twin while caring for the other, the abandoned cub was sent to Ya’an and will return to the zoo once it becomes an adult.   Categorized as an endangered species, giant pandas mostly live in the mountains of Sichuan, China. According to statistics released by the country’s State Forestry Administration, 1,590 pandas reside in the wild while more than 210 reside in captivity.