Giant panda cub makes debut at zoo in Shirahama
A female giant panda cub born at a zoo in Japan made her first public appearance in September, according to a source with the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Southwest China’s Sichuan province.
The cub was born to a 17-year-old giant panda named Rauhin at the Adventure World Zoo in the town of Shirahama in Wakayama Prefecture on Aug 14.
The birth of the giant panda marks the first time a new cub has been born at the zoo in about two years, the zoo said.
After it was born, the cub was placed in an incubator, the zoo said, and was not yet feeding from her mother. Her keepers were monitoring her breathing as it was quite shallow, the zoo said.
“We are giving her milk with a syringe because her mouth is too small to drink. We have to monitor the situation cautiously,” a zoo official said, adding that the cub was being monitored 24 hours a day.
Under the care of the zookeepers and experts from the Chengdu panda base, the cub, which only weighed 75 grams at birth, has grown to 604 grams.
The public are allowed to see the cub twice a day starting from mid-September, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and each visit lasts 20 minutes. The zoo also launched a campaign for the public to name the cub.
The mother panda Rauhin mated with a male panda named Eimei in April. Eimei, aged 25, or in his mid-70s in equivalent human years, is the world’s oldest male panda in captivity to have successfully produced offspring through natural breeding.
The Adventure World Zoo has been cooperating with the Chengdu panda base in giant panda research and breeding since 1994, marking China’s first long-term international giant panda cooperation program.
Over the years, 20 giant panda cubs have been born at the zoo, of which 16 have survived, making it one of the most successful giant panda breeding cooperation programs in the world.