TAIPEI: The first Taiwan-born giant panda cub is healthy and set to make her public debut in January, a zoo official said yesterday after panda mania swept the island in recent months.
“Yuan Zai is growing up healthily and she is practising climbing. We expect that she will be fit to be moved to an exhibition enclosure to be seen by the public in early January around six months old,” the official said.
The cub was delivered on July 6 in Taipei city zoo following a series of artificial insemination sessions after her parents — Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan — failed to conceive naturally. Zookeepers had to separate tiny Yuan Zai from her mother Yuan Yuan a few days after birth. They raised her in an incubator with round-the-clock monitoring after she was slightly injured while being reared. AFP
