Baby Panda Born at National Zoo in Washington After Many Failed Pregnancies

The National Zoo has a new resident. The zoo welcomed a new baby panda on Sunday.

Mei Xiang, the zoo's giant female panda gave birth to her second cub this week. Mei Xiang has had difficulty giving birth and many of her pregnancies have failed after her first cub was born in 2005. The new cub is a product of artificial insemination.

"I was not believing it," Don Moore, associate director for animal-care sciences, told the Washington Post. "We gave this a very low percentage. We were prepared for another disappointment. . . . We bucked the odds . . . and we've got a baby on the ground."

Mei Xiang gave birth at 10:46 p.m. on Sunday. Zoo staff and veterinarians are watching the newborn on a 24-hour camera. They cannot check on the newborn as it must bond with its mother, but they are hoping for the best. The newborn cub is hairless and about the size of a stick of butter.

"This is still a very, very precarious situation," Zoo Director Dennis Kelly told the Washington Post. "This particular animal is very, very small, and we're going to watch it very carefully, and we're going to let Mom take care of it unless we get some indication that something's wrong. So we're likely not to see much of her or the cub for about a week."

The zoo staff has only caught glimpses of the baby, but they can hear it squeal often. The staff says that Mei Xiang seems to be taking good care of her newborn so far.

"We're ecstatic," Moore said. "She's being a very, very good mom. . . . Every time the kid cries, she cradles it in a different way. What I'm looking at is really good mothering behavior."

Washington's National Zoo was the first zoo in the U.S. to have pandas and they received a pair from China after Richard Nixon's visit to the country in 1972. Only four zoos in the U.S. have pandas. Mei Xiang and her mate Tian Tian are only the second pair of pandas at the zoo.

There are some dangeers involved in the birth of the new panda. In preparation, zoo staff closed off the panda exhibit so that Mei Xiang could have some peace as an expectant mother. The staff also set up an incubator in case the cub needs to be hand raised.

The zoo's first panda couple, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, had five cubs, but none of them lived more than a few days. Pandas accidentally crush their tiny cubs sometimes.

If the cub survives, it will be named when it is 100 days old, following the Chinese tradition. The staff will likely begin their first exam of the cub in three to four weeks. The public will be able to see the cub in person when it is four to five months old.