BERLIN — The Berlin Zoo has long-awaited news: the panda Meng Meng is pregnant again, months after the first giant pandas Those born in Germany were sent to China.
The zoo said Tuesday that ultrasounds performed over the weekend showed Meng Meng is expecting two cubs. They still have a lot of growing to do, but the zoo expects the birth at the end of August, if all goes well, she said.
Meng Meng and the male panda Jiao Qing arrived in berlin in 2017. In August 2019, Meng Meng gave birth to well and paulaalso known by the Chinese names Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, the first giant pandas born in Germany.
The twins were a star attraction in Berlin, but they were flown to china in December, a trip that was contractually agreed upon from the beginning but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. China gifted friendly nations its unofficial mascot for decades as part of a policy of “panda diplomacy.” The country now lends pandas to zoos on commercial terms.
Giant pandas have difficulty reproducing and births are especially welcome. There are around 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and a few hundred in captivity around the world.
Meng Meng was artificially inseminated in March. The zoo noted that female pandas are only capable of reproducing for about 72 hours a year.
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