A Baby Panda!

Recently, Doug and I went to the National Zoo and we learned that there was a “panda watch” for a baby panda to be born in September 2013!  Well, on Friday night, August 23, 2013, when we arrived home from dinner, we learned a baby panda had been born!  For those who have been following the blog know that we love cheetahs and pandas!

You can read more about the new baby panda here; you can watch a video of Mei Xiang giving birth to the baby panda here; and view photos of the baby panda’s first check-up here.  We really hope that Tian Tian, the male panda at the National Zoo, is the father!  Doug is a huge fan of Mr. Tian Tian!  However, we think that this is a good omen that a baby panda cub has been born — a rare event here in the states!  We hope that this baby panda will continue to be a healthy panda cub — and we are pulling for a little girl panda cub!  Additionally, here is an interesting New Yorker article on panda breeding in zoos.

However, we were sad to learn that on August 25, 2013, Mei Xiang gave birth to a second cub, a stillborn.

Over the years, we have seen litters of cheetah cubs born at the National Zoo; and we saw little Tai Shan, the first panda cub (a male) born in 2005 at the National Zoo!  Mei Xiang  and Tian Tian are the mother and father of Tai Shan, who now lives in China and we hear that he may be a father soon, and he is now a “big brother” as well!

Happy Wednesday!