The San Diego Zoo has a new baby! One of their Giant Pandas, Bai Yun, gave birth back on August 5th to a healthy male. As of September 17th, the new panda weighs almost six pounds and is opening his little eyes and ears. The baby doesn't have a name yet, but he will get one when he is a hundred days old. That's the Chinese tradition!
The new baby is Bai Yun's fifth cub. She recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday, complete with bamboo ice birthday cakes, and has successfully raised three other cubs at the Zoo. Two of her grown cubs live in China. One of them is a female who is now having cubs of her own.
Giant Pandas are critically endangered, so the birth of every cub is a triumph. The panda bear's habitat is at risk from deforestation and human encroachment. The efforts of zoos around the world to increase the species numbers are critical for the mammal's survival.
In a video on this page, you can hear Bai Yun's tiny cub squawking for his mom as she goes out of the den to get some fresh air. On the Zoo's Giant Panda Blog, you can track the cub's progress and read about how the vets care for him.
It's seven o'clock in the morning on the west coast right now, so as I turn on the Live Panda Cam, all I can see is a ball of black and white fir sleeping cozily. But in a few hours, I'll bet the bears will be up and ready to have a snack. I'm going to keep my eye on them, and I'll be sure to thank the people at the Zoo for all the fine work they do to try and add to the world's population of these fantastic animals.
(photo from the San Diego Zoo)
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