HONG KONG — Hong Kong authorities have made a surprise announcement that a giant panda has given birth to the city's first twin cubs, making her the world's oldest first-time panda mother.
Panda Ying Ying gave birth to two cubs, a male and a female, on Thursday, according to Ocean Park, the theme park where Ying Ying and her partner Lele have lived since 2007. The twins were born one day before Ying Ying turned 19, the equivalent of 57 human years.
“This birth is truly unusual given that Ying Ying is the oldest giant panda on record to have given birth successfully for the first time,” Paulo Peng, chairman of the Ocean Park Authority, said in a statement late Thursday.
The first cub, a female, weighed 122 grams (4.3 ounces), followed more than an hour later by a male cub weighing 112 grams (3.95 ounces). The park said the cubs are in around-the-clock intensive care and will not be available to the public for several months.
“The cubs are currently very weak and need time to be stabilized. The female cub in particular has a low body temperature, is vocalizing weakly and is eating little,” the park said.
Ying Ying, whose pregnancy was only confirmed on Sunday and not made public, was in labour for more than five hours.
“As a first-time mother, Ying Ying was understandably nervous throughout the birth,” the park said in a statement. “She spent most of the time lying on the ground and squirming.”
Giant pandas have a notoriously low fertility rate, especially as they get older, and pregnancy in a panda can be difficult to detect, but panda breeding programs have been increasingly successful and the species was recently upgraded from “endangered” to “vulnerable.”
According to Ocean Park, Ying Ying began showing symptoms of pregnancy in late July, including a loss of appetite, increased resting times and changes in hormone levels.
The baby panda was conceived naturally after Ying Ying and Lele successfully mated at the park in March, after multiple attempts at natural mating and artificial insemination had failed to produce a pregnancy.
In a statement announcing the birth, Hong Kong's leader, John Lee, thanked the Chinese central government for sending Yingying and Lele to Hong Kong, saying “this shows the government's care and support for Hong Kong.”
Li announced in July that Beijing plans to send another pair of pandas to Hong Kong later this year. The first pair of pandas to arrive on Chinese territory, An An and Jia Jia, arrived in 1999. Jia Jia, the world's oldest panda living in captivity, died in 2016 at age 38, and An An is due to die in 2022 at age 35.
Giant pandas are native to China and are considered the national symbol, and Beijing has recently begun reviving its long-standing “panda diplomacy” as a way to promote friendly ties with the United States and other countries.
The first pair of giant pandas in 20 years arrived in the United States in June, their journey from southwest China to San Diego shrouded in secrecy that has bordered on obsession among fans. Two more are due to arrive at the National Zoo in Washington this year.
Meng Meng, a panda at the Berlin Zoo, is also pregnant with twins, the zoo announced this week, with the second set of cubs due to be born by the end of the month.
